Vladimir Propp (research)

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp

He was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales and deduced these stories in to simple Narrative elements.

He was born in the late 19th century, studying philosophy in university. He then worked as a teacher in secondary school, teaching German and Russian. He then taught at college teaching just German. When he was 33 he published the book Morphology of the Folk Tale. It was a break through of folklore itself as the structure of folk lore and fairy tales. The book wasn't noticed until the 1950's when it was translated for the Westerners. The types of characters he produced were very vast and could be applied to most stories, whether that being literature to folklore. He chaired the Department on Folklore until it became part of the Department of Russian Literature. Propp remained a faculty member until his death in 1970.

He used a different way on approach on narrative structure, breaking sentence structure into more smaller, analytic descriptions, Russian folklore being one of them.
He came up with a theory following of up to 31 structures.

He also concluded that all the characters are into 8 broad using the 100 Russian folk tales he analyzed
These are:

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-  Usually gives the task or order. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father couldn't 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. 

I found a music video that applies his theory



This music video by the Singer Pink- Please Dont leave me and has many elements of Propps theory of characters. In the beginning she plays the princess and her boyfriend plays the villian as he struggles against the hero. However, roles change after the boyfriend's accident, making the lead singer the villian. Also she uses alot of objects representing this, such as the golf club and butcher knife, which can symbolise a sword being used in fairy tales. Also, the elemet of the donor is used, being the aresole to fight against the villain in the video. This ends up resulting in the death of the villain. Which is a modern day type of happy ending that has ben used in old folklore aswell.