LO3 Narrative Theory

Story - a sequence of events - the plot

Narrative - the techniques used to tell the story how its structured.

Plot of Venom:

Eddie is a news reporter living in New York.

Eddie goes to obscorp to interviews Carlton Drake who is the leader of the company which keeps venom and experiments on people.

Eddie gets touched by venom and begins to be taken over by venom.

Eddie is made to do what venom wants.

Theory one: Tim O'Sulivan et al(1998)

All media texts tell us some kind of story

Through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves(as a culture) - these are ideologies.

 ideologies - values and beliefs.

• advancements in technology and science

Theory two: Pam Cook(1985)

The standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:

Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution

a high degree of narrative closure

a fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence 

• The use of venoms DNA for science.

Theory three: Tzvetan Todorov(1977)

stage 1: point of equilibrium

stage 2: This stability is disrupted and creates disequilibrium

stage 3: action against disruption

stage 4: restoration of equilibrium

• Eddie living in San Francisco and is a journalist
• Eddie becomes venom and causes chaos
• Eddie and Weying take down Drake with venom
• venom is secretly bonded with Eddie and they taker down crime and he goes back to journalism.

Theory four: Claude Levi- Strauss(1958)

Binary opposites - good versus evil

• Eddie vs Drake 
• Eddie vs Venom 
• Venom vs Drake

Theory five: Vladimir Propp(1928)

all narratives feature stock characters and that audiences understand stories because of such features.

villain/antagonist

hero/protagonist

helper/sidekick

princess

• Carlton Drake
• Venom and Eddie 
• Anne Weying

Theory six: Roland Barthes(1977)

enigma codes work to keep up setting problems or puzzles for the audience.
action codes informs the audience in terms of what is happening in the next scene.

• Eddie being chased on his motorbike 
• Eddie switches his motorbike on