We applied theories and ideas of four narrative theorists to 'The Shining'. Propp was a Russian critic who explored the underlying structures of folk tales and he came up with a set of universal charcaters and narrative functions which he thought were the basic for all stories. His ideas fit with 'The Shining' through his 8 character roles being; The Villain, The Hero, The Donor, The Helper, The Princess, Her Father, The Dispatcher and The False Hero. These 8 charcters are what Propp believed were in all kinds of narratives. Heros and Villains are in any type of story or drama, wheather it is from a book, film or TV programme.The other 6 character types are not always featured in a story, but can relate to those in the film, book or programme. Most of the time characters such as a Helper, Donor and Her Father can be small part character that only feature in the story for a couple to minutes but on the other hand be in the entire story. Propp also had the idea of there being 31 narrative sturctures in every story. The first being 'A memeber of the family leaves home' and the last, 'The hero is married and crowned'. Although all 31 structures may not apply to every single story every written, but elements of Propps narrative structure will be in most stories and tales.

The second theorist Tzventan Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. It is a normal story structure with chains of events which things occur throughout and Todorov believed that the whole story is trying to get back to its original state. This diagram shows Todorov's Theory, how it starts with the equilbrium, then it builds up to the main event with the climax. The main event then happens and past that point, things are trying to get back to the way they were. The classic Hollywood or classic realist narrative structure is based on Todorov's ideas. His theory is shown in 'The Shining' because it all starts out normal. 'Jack' has just received a new job with his family. Then things start to go wrong, 'Jack' starts seeing things and becomes a bit insane. The main event being 'Jack' chasing after his family with an intent to kill them. The problem gets solved when Halloron returns with a snowplow which is the only escape for 'Wendy' and 'Danny'. It also could be solved because 'Jack' freezes to death so there is no longer any evil lerking, or is there?




Thirdly Claude Levi-Strauss looked at structure in terms of opposites such as; Earth/Space, Good/Evil, Humans/Aliens, Past/ Present, Normal/Strange and Known/Unknown. With Good and Evil we understand that they both are opposite to eachother but Strauss wasn't interested in the order of the events and the plot. He looked deeper into the arrangements of themes.




The fourth and final theorist is/are Bordwell and Thompson. They believed that "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space". They did not create a full narrative theory but did come together with some interesting ideas. They believed that a narrative begins with a situation, followed by a series of changes which causes a cause and effect. It then ends the narrative with the arise of a new situation. It defines where things take place, when they take place and how quickly they take place. For 'The Shining' the screen duration is 115mins, plot duration being 6 months and the story duartion is 60 years. The screen duration is the length of the movie, the plot is how long they were at the hotel for, and the stor duration is how long the whole story lasts, throughout past and present.