His Morphology of the Folk Tale was published in Russian in 1928. Although it represented a breakthrough in both folkloristics and morphology and influenced Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes, it was generally unnoticed in the West until it was translated in the 1950s. His character types are used in media education and can be applied to almost any film or television series.
Narrative Structure
Vladimir Propp extended the Russian Formalist approach to the study of narrative structure. In the Formalist approach, sentence structures were broken down into analyzable elements, or morphemes, and Propp used this method by analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales. By breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units, or narratemes, Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures. By analyzing character and action types, Propp concluded that there were 31 generic narratemes in the Russian folk tale. While not all were present, he found that all the tales he had analyzed displayed the functions in unvarying sequence.
Functions
After the initial situation is depicted, the tale takes the following sequence of 31 functions:[3]
- A member of a family leaves home (the hero is introduced);
- An interdiction is addressed to the hero ('don't go there', 'don't do this');
- The interdiction is violated (villain enters the tale);
- The villain makes an attempt at reconnaissance (either villain tries to find the children/jewels etc; or intended victim questions the villain);
- The villain gains information about the victim;
- 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);
- Victim taken in by deception, unwittingly helping the enemy;
- 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, comits murder, imprisons/detains someone, threatens forced marriage, provides nightly torments); Alternatively, a member of family lacks something or desires something (magical potion etc);
- Misfortune or lack is made known, (hero is dispatched, hears call for help etc/ alternative is that victimized hero is sent away, freed from imprisonment);
- Seeker agrees to, or decides upon counter-action;
- Hero leaves home;
- Hero is tested, interrogated, attacked etc, preparing the way for his/her receiving magical agent or helper (donor);
- Hero reacts to actions of future donor (withstands/fails the test, frees captive, reconciles disputants, performs service, uses adversary's powers against him);
- Hero acquires use of a magical agent (directly transferred, located, purchased, prepared, spontaneously appears, eaten/drunk, help offered by other characters);
- Hero is transferred, delivered or led to whereabouts of an object of the search;
- Hero and villain join in direct combat;
- Hero is branded (wounded/marked, receives ring or scarf);
- Villain is defeated (killed in combat, defeated in contest, killed while asleep, banished);
- Initial misfortune or lack is resolved (object of search distributed, spell broken, slain person revivied, captive freed);
- Hero returns;
- Hero is pursued (pursuer tries to kill, eat, undermine the hero);
- Hero is rescued from pursuit (obstacles delay pursuer, hero hides or is hidden, hero transforms unrecognisably, hero saved from attempt on his/her life);
- Hero unrecognized, arrives home or in another country;
- False hero presents unfounded claims;
- Difficult task proposed to the hero (trial by ordeal, riddles, test of strength/endurance, other tasks);
- Task is resolved;
- Hero is recognized (by mark, brand, or thing given to him/her);
- False hero or villain is exposed;
- Hero is given a new appearance (is made whole, handsome, new garments etc);
- Villain is punished;
- Hero marries and ascends the throne (is rewarded/promoted)
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