Christopher Vogler's Narrative Theory

Christopher Vogler is a Hollywood development executive who is well known for the guide he created for screenwriters. This guide develops further the idea of equilibrium, disturbance and new equilibrium. In fact Vogler created the idea that these sections are subdivided into 12 smaller sections. The illustration below shows this.

Vogler originally wrote his book whilst working for Disney in 1992. He edited the book again in 1998 and as recently as 2007 he re-edited the book to show how his theory could be related to more up to date film releases.
It is hard to remember the 12 stages for the Media examination so concentrate on the fact that there are 12 stages and that there are thresholds ( major turning points ) in the story.

Levi Strauss' Narrative Theory

Claude Levi Strauss stated that narratives usually were made up of what he called a binary opposition.
This means that there are 2 opposite positions or characters in a narrative.

Examples of Binary oppositions could be;

War and Peace
Girl and Boy
Rich and Poor
Civilized and Savage

Clearly these oppositions can be quite emotive!

Todorov' s Narrative theory

Todorov had a theory that most narratives were divided into three sections.
He called these three sections;

• The Equilibrium
• 
  
• The Disruption
• 
  
• The New Equilibrium

The Equilibrium at the start is the way in which the characters are presented to begin with. That means how things are - this can be a good or bad situation, it just shows the audience the status quo (how things are for the characters).

The Disruption can come quite soon into the story. It is the moment when something changes - it is the catalyst that kicks off the main narrative of the story. All of the subsequent action/story line stems from this event or moment.

The New Equilibrium is how the story ends. It is called the "New" because the characters have changed and things have happened. This new equilibrium is not necessarily just a happy ending - although in some narratives of course it is.