Narrative analysis (Feb 13)

1. Social convention and narrative
1.1. The way of organizing cultural signs
1.2. Convention: association of signs
1.3. Convention is not necessarily about reality but symbolic construction.
1.3. Synchronic association (共時性的聯繫)
Example: Breast-slim legs-smile-confidence-... ...
1.4. Temporal association（歷時性的聯繫）: Signs are organized according to time sequence
1.5. A narrative(敘事) is a structured sequence of events in time.

Example I: Body slimming
Social convention: The power of body-slimming knowledge and service












Example II: Hong Kong from a fishing village to a metropolis
Social convention: The belief in progress

2. Pleasure (快感) and desire (慾望)
2.1. Pleasure:
Satisfcation from following time sequence and reaching the closure of the story.
2.2. Desire:
The impulse to follow the narrative and to reach its closure.

3. Character analysis (Vladimir Propp, Russian critic and folklorist)
3.1. Role analysis
-The roles in the story are representing social groups.
-Metaphorical or metonymic analysis
3.2. Functions (patternized plots)

Example: A story about extra-marital affairs

Role I: Husband-Employed, public, middle-aged, smart, active ... ...
Role II: Wife-Housewife, private, middle-aged, diligent, passive... ...
Role III: Mistress-Single, young, public, active, ... ...

Function I: Problems in marriage
Function II: Husband had a crush on mistress
Function III: Wife found the affairs
Function IV: Breakup
Function V: The conflict between mistress and husband
Function IV: Reunion

Convention: The order of nuclear family


Example: Princess Diana
Role of Diana-"Cinderella"
Role of Charles-Prince

Convention: Romance-Fairy tale






4. Equilibrium-Disequilibrium-Equilibrium (Tzvetan Todorov, Bulgarian structuralist linguist)
4.1. Most stories go through these three stages.
4.2. Equilibrium: beginning and end without conflict
4.3. Disequilibrium: conflict

Example: Shaolin soccer
Equilibrium I: Underclass, failure
Disequilibrium: Recruting team members, Training and competing with other football teams, ... ...
Equilibrium II: Football star, success

4.4. Whose equilibrium and disequilibrium?

5. Narrator's viewpoint(敘事者觀點) and narratee （接受敘事者）
5.1. Story is always told by somebody and for somebody else.
5.2. One or some characters dominate the time sequence of the story.
5.3. The dominant viewpoint is imposed on the voices of other characters.
Example: Whose story is Infernal Affairs? Two men's story.
Example: Whose story is Election？Men's story
5.4. But narratee might not accept the narrator's viewpoint.
Example: 《阿旺新傳》：The story of Ah Wong or Ah Ho?





6. Narrative analysis of an advertisement of beer (咁至係生力/新鮮)
6.1. Roles: Men (waiting for girls) and a "sexy girl" (impersonated by a man)
6.2. Functions/ formulas: Men's talk, a sexy girl is approaching, a man has a crush on a woman, a romance, a joke... ...
6.3. Desire:
-Following conventional formulas and men's desire
6.4. Pleasure:
-Arriving at an unconventional closure
6.5. Equilibrium(Men's circle)-->Disequilibrium (a sexy girl is approaching the men)-->Equilibrium (A man is "captured" and laughed)
6.6. Repeating male-centric convention and breaking convention
6.7. Men's viewpoint is dominating the storyline.
6.8. Beer is a metaphor of men's desire and something funny.

7. Narrative, convention and dominant discourse
7.1. Some narrative structures are repeated and repeated in our society.
7.2. Narrative <---> convention
7.3. Discourse is set of textual arrangements which organizes and co-ordinates the actions, positions and identities of the people who produce it.
7.4. Conventional narratives become part of the dominant discourses.
7.5. Negotiated narrative: narratees might challenge and re-narrate the conventional narratives.


Further references
Narratology
Branston. Chapter 3 "Narration"
Thwaites, Tony and Lloyd Davis and Warwick Mules. 1994. Tools for cultural studies: An introduction. Melbourne: Macmillan, Chapter 6 "Narrative".