narrative
中秋节歌曲-2013年广东高考
Unit 4
Part A
Selected from
http:iPlot_(narrative), revised
Narrative
refers to the way that a story is told. It is
principally concerned with
the way that events
are organized in time and space – the way in which
the
scriptwriter and director take the raw
elements of a story and arrange them in
the
most attractive and interesting way. (摘自英文电影赏析)
Plot is a literary term defined as the events
that make up a story, particularly
as they
relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence,
through cause and
effect, how the reader views
the story, or simply by coincidence. A plot
author Jenna Blum. One is generally
interested in how well this pattern of
events
accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect.
In other words, a plot is a summary of a
story, and composed of causal events,
which
means a series of sentences linked by
Princess
runs after the Queen, so finds the Queen
orders
events from A to Z in time. Thus,
then the
Queen conjures up an ice palace
important
points and the line of a story, and therefore
provides a more
complete picture of how a
fleshed-out story works by a logical skeleton.
Consequently, it also has the same meaning as
Storyline.
Gustav Freytag considered plot a
narrative structure that divides a story into
five parts, like the five acts of a play.
These parts are: exposition (of the
situation); rising action (through conflict);
climax (or turning point); falling action;
and
resolution.
Exposition
The exposition
introduces all of the main characters in the
story. It shows how
they relate to one
another, what their goals and motivations are, and
the kind
of person they are. The audience may
have questions about any of these
things,
which get settled, but if they do have them they
are specific and
well-focused questions. Most
importantly, in the exposition, the audience gets
to know the main character (protagonist), and
the protagonist gets to know his
or her main
goal and what is at stake if he or she fails to
attain this goal and if
he eventually attains
this goal
This phase ends, and the next
begins, with the introduction of conflict.
Inciting Incident
Right before the
Rising Action is the Inciting Incident. This is
the point of the
plot that begins the
conflict.
Inciting Incidents;
Hearing the
Gunshots that made him go to the rail--
in
such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he
heard the sound, and again.
Somewhere, off in
the blackness, someone had fired a gun three
times.
Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell)
--or him dropping his pipe and falling into
the ocean.
eyes in the direction from
which the reports had come, but it was like trying
to
see through a blanket. He leaped upon the
rail and balanced himself there, to
get
greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was
knocked from his mouth.
He lunged for it; a
short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he
realized he had
reached too far and had lost
his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the
blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed
over his head.
Rising action
Rising action
is the second phase in Freytag's five-phase
structure. It starts
with the death of the
characters or a conflict. The buildup of events
until the
climax are involved in rising
action.
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch's
critical apparatus to categorize plots into types,
e.g., man vs. society. The difference is that
an entire story can be discussed
according to
Quiller-Couch's mode of analysis, while Freytag is
talking about
the second act in a five-act
play, at a time when all of the major characters
have been introduced, their motives and
allegiances have been made clear (at
least for
the most part), and they now begin to struggle
against one another.
Generally, in this phase
the protagonist understands his or her goal and
begins
to work toward it. Smaller problems
thwart their initial success and, in this
phase, progress is directed primarily against
these secondary obstacles. This
phase shows us
how the protagonist overcomes these obstacles.
Conflict
This is when a disagreement
between two or more peoplegroups occur. This
disagreement leads to the climax.
Climax
The point of climax is the turning point of
the story, where the main character
makes the
single big decision that defines the outcome of
the story and who he
or she is as a person.
The dramatic phase that Freytag called the
the third of the five phases and
occupies the middle of the story. Thus
climax
drama.
The beginning of this
phase is marked by the protagonist finally having
cleared
away the preliminary barriers and
being ready to engage with the adversary.
Usually, entering this phase, both the
protagonist and the antagonist have a
plan to
win against the other. Now for the first time we
see them going against
one another in either
direct or nearly direct conflict.
This
struggle results with neither character completely
winning, nor losing,
against the other.
Usually, each character's plan is partially
successful, and
partially foiled by his
adversary. What is unique about this central
struggle
between the two characters is that
the protagonist makes a decision which
shows
us his moral quality, and ultimately determines
his fate. In a tragedy, the
protagonist here
makes a
his tragic flaw.
The climax often
contains much of the action in a story, for
example, a defining
battle.
″Climax″ is
the highest point of the story.
Falling action
Frey tag called this phase
usually a happy
ending. The events consist of the actions of
characters
resolving the problem.
In this
phase, the villain has the upper hand. It seems
that evil will triumph. The
protagonist has
never been further from accomplishing the goal.
For Freytag,
this is true both in tragedies
and comedies, because both of these types of
plots classically show good winning over evil.
The question is which side the
protagonist has
put himself on, and this may not be immediately
clear to the
audience.
Denouement
The
Resolution: where the story's mystery is solved.
In this stage all patterns
of events
accomplish some artistic or emotional effect.
Words and Expressions
Exercise
Translate the following sentences into
Chinese.
Narrative-A chain of events in
cause-effect relationships occurring in time and
space.
Story-All the events that we see
and hear, plus all those that we infer or
assume to have occurred, arranged in their
presumed causal relations,
chronological
order, duration, frequency, and spatial locations.
Plot-All the events that are directly
presented to us, including their causal
relations, chronological order, duration,
frequency, and spatial locations.
The key
distinction is that between story and plot: Story
is the viewer’s
imaginary construction of all
the events in the narrative – whether presented to
us or not – while plot is the film’s actual
presentation of certain events in the
narrative.
——David Bordwell and Kristin
Thomas in Film Art
Approach the narrative
structure of a given movie through Gustav
Freytag’s
theory.
Part B
Selected from
http:iThe_Seven_Basic_Plots, revised
The Seven
Basic Plots:
Why We Tell Stories is a 2004
book by Christopher
Booker, a Jungian-
influenced analysis of stories and their
psychological
meaning.
The meta-plot
The meta-plot begins with the anticipation
stage, in which the hero is called to
the
adventure to come. This is followed by a dream
stage, in which the
adventure begins, the hero
has some success, and has an illusion of
invincibility. However, this is then followed
by a frustration stage, in which the
hero has
their first confrontation with the enemy, and the
illusion of invincibility
is lost. This
worsens in the nightmare stage, which is the
climax of the plot,
where hope is apparently
lost. Finally, in the resolution, the hero
overcomes
their burden against the odds.
The Seven Basic Plots
Overcoming the
Monster
The protagonist sets out to defeat an
antagonistic force which threatens the
protagonist andor protagonist's homeland.
Examples: Perseus, Theseus, Beowulf,
Dracula, War of the Worlds, Nicholas
Nickleby,
The Guns of Navarone, Seven Samurai and its
Western-style
remake The Magnificent Seven,
James Bond, Star Wars: A New Hope, Lord of
the
Rings.
Rags to Riches
The poor protagonist
acquires things such as power, wealth, and a mate,
before losing it all and gaining it back upon
growing as a person.
Examples: Cinderella,
Aladdin, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, David
Copperfield.
The Quest
The
protagonist and some companions set out to acquire
an important object
or to get to a location,
facing many obstacles and temptations along the
way.
Examples: Iliad, The Pilgrim’s Progress,
King Solomon's Mines, Watership
Down. The
Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings
Voyage and
Return
The protagonist goes to a strange land
and, after overcoming the threats it
poses to
himher, returns with nothing but experience.
Examples: Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland,
Goldilocks and the Three Bears,
Orpheus, The
Time Machine, Peter Rabbit, Brideshead Revisited,
The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner, Gone with the
Wind, The Third Man.
Comedy
The
protagonists are destined to be in love, but
something is keeping them
from being together,
which is resolved by the end of the story.
Examples: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado
About Nothing, Twelfth
Night, Bridget Jones
Diary, Music and Lyrics, Sliding Doors, Four
Weddings
and a Funeral, Mr Bean
Tragedy
The protagonist is a villain who falls from
grace and whose death is a happy
ending.
Examples: Macbeth, The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Carmen, Bonnie and Clyde,
Jules et Jim, Anna
Karenina, Madame Bovary, John Dillinger, Romeo and
Juliet,Julius Caesar.
Rebirth
The
protagonist is a villain or otherwise unlikable
character who redeems
himherself over the
course of the story.
Examples: Sleeping
Beauty, The Frog Prince, Beauty and the Beast, The
Snow Queen, A Christmas Carol, The Secret
Garden, Peer Gynt. , Life Is a
Dream,Despicable Me
Other theories
about the basic plots and the basic stories:
Arthur Quiller Couch possibly originally
formulated seven basic plots as a
series of
conflicts: Human vs. Human, Human vs. Nature,
Human against God,
Human vs. Society, Human in
the Middle, Woman & Man, Human vs. Himself.
Rory Johnston argued that there are seven
basic stories that form the basis for
all
fictional narratives: Achilles, Candide,
Cinderella, Circe, Faust, Orpheus,
Romeo and
Juliet, Tristan, and the Wandering Jew.
Words
and Expressions
Exercise
Approach a
given movie through above-mentioned film theories.