Task 3

Narrative Theory:

Narrative theory suggests that narrative is a fundamental of our living, our experiences in life, our time, our changes, and our process. The narrative theory explores in depth the elements, structures, uses, and effects of the nature of narrative in peoples lives. Narrative theorists look into how particular events and particular circumstances in particular peoples lives have a greater impact on later life. They also explore how people make sense of stories, and how people make sense of the world through those stories.

Vladimir Propp:

Vladimir Propp was a Soviet that explored and broke down Russian fairy tales in the 1920's. He broke down the fairy tales into different elements and noticed that the majority of the fairy tales shared the same elements of the stories, characters, and functions. He compiled the amount of reoccurring characters into a list of seven and the a list of reoccurring functions to the storyline into thirty-one. The list of both are as seen:

Characters:

1) The Villain - an evil character that would make it difficult for the hero.

2) The Dispatcher - a character that sends the hero of on an adventure. Often enough it is normally the princesses father or town leader.

3) The Helper - Typically magical, helps the hero on the adventure.

4) The Princess/Prize - the person that the hero is searching for, or wanting to marry. In which the villain is preventing this, defeating the villain would be by marrying the Princess.

5) The Donor - someone who helps the hero by equipping them with things they need to start their adventure.

6) The Hero - the character who set off on the adventure in search for the Princess, defeats the Villain and would end up with the Princess.

7) The False Hero - a character who tries to take credit for the real hero's action, possibly would try to steal the Princess away from the Hero.

Tzvetan Todorov:

Tzvetan's narrative theory was that in each story it followed a similar pattern, each story had three stages. It started with equilibrium, where the story is balanced and its all going well. Then something comes along to ruin the equilibrium, the main plot that the story is about, and finally the restoring of the equilibrium where the story is restored to its original balance. The theory can be applied to many things in the media industry, films, books, television programs etc.

Levi Strauss:

Levi Strauss is a social anthropologist who studied myths of tribal cultures, he looked into how stories show the beliefs, values, and myths of the worlds cultures. He came up with the name binary opposites which his theory applies to, other theorists have adapted the original theory to make it more understandable and apply within more media texts. His theory explored stories that had characters who where complete opposites, for example a coward would only fit into a story if there was a hero. The opposite characters allow the story to flow and continue. Strauss noticed a pattern of opposites featuring in tribal culture books and myths.

Roland Barthes:

Roland Bathes was a french literal theorist that believed there where five codes that would describe text, as well as the texts being open or closed. The five codes where Referential, Enigma, Action, Semantic, and Symbolic.

Codes:

1) Referential - When the text references something externally from another source, could be something to do with history or science.

2) Enigma - The enigma code is where the story refers to the mystery within the text, enigmas are very subtle clues for the audience. Enigmas are used in text because it attracts the readers attention and keeps them engaged.

3) Action - The action code is back to back action that would flow through the whole story.

4) Semantic - Semantic code refers to hidden meanings or additional meanings, it adds extra meaning to the text.

5) Symbolic - This code is about creating symbolism within the text, it helps to build up the story, characters, and suspense within the story.

Fairy Liquid Advert Analysis:

From the early 1960's to the late 1990's fairy liquid have created multiple adverts to promote their fairy liquid washing up soap. In this time period, the adverts shared very similar aspects, this was that a woman and a young daughter where the main focal point trying to sell the product. The adverts show a white mother and daughter in the kitchen, the daughter playing alongside the mother. The daughter would ask why fairy liquid is so good, with the mother replying that it cleans dishes better than any other product on the market. As well as it making your hands soft, which is important because it makes the woman more appealing to men. In those times, it was acceptable to be showing this to the public. However, nowadays it is very unacceptable and would be classed as sexist towards woman. It suggests that woman are predominantly the ones in the kitchen and it isn't a mans job, this would fall under legal issues. The ethical issue that apply's to all of the adverts produced in that time period is the lack of different ethnicity's. Every mother and daughter in the adverts were white, showing a lack of other ethnicity's or religions.

However, this changed in the year 2000, when fairy liquid produced an advert with a black woman and a young black boy. This covers the breach of ethical issue, including another ethnicity, this also shows that the times have changed and it is deemed more acceptable to the public. Fairy liquid also removed the continuous story of the fairy liquid soap makes the woman's hands softer. This was originally inappropriate because it they suggested that woman had to have soft hands, instead the 2000 advert the focal point was that the bottle lasted longer. In the 2015 advert for fairy liquid it changed again, they removed the focal point of the woman, and changed it to a man. Although they did include a woman making it more appropriate showing that men and woman can wash up. The advert shows both parents washing up while trying to sell the product to the audience, as well as keeping the focal point of the bottle being its ever lasting ability.

In the 2015 fairy liquid advert you can apply Tzvetan Todorov's theory of equilibrium, at the beginning of the advert the plates are dirty but everything is fine. This would be early equilibrium, however the mother notices that the plates are dirty and distorts the story. This would be the disruption, finally the mother and the father finish washing the plates and everything is restored, this is the new equilibrium. Another theory that can be applied to the same advert is Vladimir Propp's theory of the recurring characters in each story. Although not all the characters pop up, it is clear that you can link someone of the characters to the characters in the advert. The donor in the story is the father who gives the empty washing up bottle to the son who has been wanting to create a rocket out of it from the start of the advert, and the hero would have been the son who was patiently waiting for the bottle while asking questions to his father about the bottle.