He identified:
• 8 character roles (or ‘spheres of action’)
31 functions which move the story along
Propp’s 8 character roles or ‘spheres of action’
• The villain
• The hero - a seeker character motivated by an initial lack
• The donor, who provides an object with some magic property
• The helper, who aids the hero
• The princess, a reward for the hero and object of the
villain’s schemes
• Her father, who validates the hero
• The dispatcher, who sends the hero on his way
• The false hero
• Propp’s theory is a form of structuralism, which is a view that all media is inevitably in the form of certain fixed structures.
• These structures are often culturally derived and form expectations in the mind of an audience from within that same culture eg fairy tales always have happy endings or the princess always marries the handsome prince.
After the initial situation is depicted, the tale takes the following
sequence:
1. A member of a family leaves home (the hero is introduced);
2. An interdiction is addressed to the hero (’don’t go there’, ‘go to
this place’);
3. The interdiction is violated (villain enters the tale);
4. The villain makes an attempt at reconnaissance (either villain
tries to find the children/jewels etc; or intended victim questions
the villain);
5. The villain gains information about the victim;
6. The villain attempts to deceive the victim to take possession of
victim or victim’s belongings (trickery; villain disguised, tries to win
confidence of victim);
7. Victim taken in by deception, unwittingly helping the enemy;
8. Villain causes harm/injury to family member (by abduction,
theft of magical agent, spoiling crops, plunders in other forms,
causes a disappearance, expels someone, casts spell on someone,
substitutes child etc, commits murder, imprisons/detains someone,
threatens forced marriage, provides nightly torments); Alternatively,
a member of family lacks something or desires something (magical...