Propp and Todorov

Propp
Propp examined hundreds of examples of one kind of folk tale, the 'heroic wondertale', to see whether they shared any structures. He argued that, whatever the surface differences, it was possible to group characters and actions into:

• eight character roles (or 'spheres of action' as he called them - to indicate how inseparable are character and action)
• thirty-one functions (such as a 'prohibition or ban is imposed on the hero' or 'the villain learns something about his vicitm')

Propp argued, make sense of the ways in which many very different figures could be reduced to eight character roles. These are:

•  the villain
• the hero, or character that seeks something, motivated by an initial lack.
• the donor who provides an object with some magic property
• the helper who aids the hero
• the princess, reward for the hero and object of the villain's schemes
• her father, who rewards the hero
• the dispatcher, who sends the hero on his way
• the false hero

Todorov
Todorov argued that all stories begin with an 'equilibrium' where any potentially opposing forces are 'in balance'. This is disrupted by some event, setting in train a series of other events, to close with a second but different 'equilibrium' or status quo. His theory may sound just like the cliche that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. But it's more interesting than that. His 'equilibrium' labels a state of affairs, a status quo, and how this is 'set up' in certain ways and not others.

Workers today decided to reject a pay offer of 1% for instance, begins a news story with a disruption to an 'equilbrium', but we know who has offered the pay rise, for what kinds of conditions, after what negotiations. How, where and when else could the story have begun are always good questions to ask.

A example of how Propp and Todorov is applied, with the portayel of John Doe played by Kevin Spacey in David Finchers 'Se7en'