Narrative Theory

We applied the theories of four narrative theorists to the horror movie 'The Shining'. One of these theorists was Vladimir Propp who devised a list of narrative functions, and character types shared by 100's of folk tales which he believed were the basis of all stories. However, after applying his theory to 'The Shining' we realised there wasn't much of a correlation between the plot of the film and his list of 31 narrative functions. Some of the functions were present  in the film, but tended to be out of order to how Propp said they would be. On the other hand, his ideas on character roles in any story did tend to fit with those in 'The Shining' for example: a villain, donor, helper, hero, and victim were all present, however some characters tended to fit with more than one role such as Halloran.

Another theorist we attempted to apply to the film was Tzvetan Todorov who's ideas on narrative structure suggest that all stories begin with an equilibrium which is quite quickly disrupted by an event, setting in a chain of events.

A visual representation of Todorov's narrative structure theory

He said that problems are then solved so that order can be restored to the characters world. I would argue that this theory doesn't correlate with the plot of 'The Shining' however. The story line of this film plays out in a way where there isn't a one single event that majorly disrupts the status quo of the characters. Instead we see a steady decline into madness from Jack, which eventually leads to the climatic finale played out in the maze. Instead of seeing a series of problems being solved to restore equilibrium, I believe the situation in 'The Shining' steadily gets worse and worse, finishing with an abrupt solution to restore the normality back into the characters lives.

The third theorist we discussed was Claude Levi-Strauss, a French Anthropologist who in his theories, wasn't interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot. He instead looked for the deeper arrangement of themes in a story in terms of binary opposites. I believe his theory allows us to understand the meaning of the plot of 'The Shining' more so than the previous two theories as it allows us to consider the underlying themes in the story. The binary opposites expressed in this movie are:

• Good vs Evil (Jacks family and Jack himself)

• Past and Present (Past horrific events in the hotel, and the current story)

• Sanity and Madness (Wendy and Jack)

• Normal and Abnormal (Real life and Premonitions)

• Community and Isolation (The isolated hotel, or Jack isolating himself from his family)

By listing these themes, I can instantly see which characters can relate to which theme for example Wendy is shown to be good, and sane in 'The Shining', whereas Jack in stark contrast is portrayed as evil, and insane.

The fourth and final theory we discussed, in my opinion, best allows us to understand the narrative structure of this film. Bordwell and Thompson, two theorists who looked into the narrative structure of stories define narrative as "A chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space". This is a very interesting observation as for them narrative typically  begins with one situation, followed by a series of changes according to a pattern of cause and effect. However if we apply their ideas on time to 'The Shining', we can begin to fully understand the plot a lot more. The film appears to show the breakdown of time as the plot progresses. One way this is shown is through Jack's premonitions. He always appears to be talking to a figure from the past such as Delbert Grady, suggesting that the order of time has disappeared and the past has come crashing into the present. Whether this is actually happening, or just all in Jack's imagination is never fully suggested in the film. The audience is asked to determine what they believe to be reality as Jack can't for himself. Did Jack's Premonition really let him out of the locked pantry?

Jack's insanity reaching a whole new level

The intersecting titles showing when the events occur also show the breakdown of time in the film. To begin with we are given a definite order of events with titles such as '1 month later' and '1 week later', but later on we simply get given the particular days of the events such as ' Tuesday' and 'Saturday'. The audience begins to lose track on the connection between days and time, just as Jack is sinking further and further in to insanity.