Research on Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp was born in germany on April 17, 1895  . He attended St. Petersburg University . once he graduated he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and then became a college teacher of German. His book Morphology of the Folk Tale was published in Russian in 1928. It was tranlated in 1950's when it then started to get noticed in the West. In media education they use his character types , they can be applied to almost any story, be it in literature, theatre, film, television series, games, etc.


He extended the approach of narrative structure.  He broke down sentece structures into anayzble elements. Propp used this method on Russian fairly tales. He broke the tales into their smallest narrative units.  the tales take the following sequence of 31 functions.


After analysing 100 videos he distinguished 8 character types 

1. The villain — struggles against the hero.
2. The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
3. The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
4. The princess or prize — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. the hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.
5. her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
6. The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
7. The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
8. False hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.