Research: Who is Vladimir Propp

Main points

• Vladimir Propp was born on Aril 17th 1895 and died Auggust 22nd 1970.
• St. Petersburg University (1913–1918) majoring in Russian and German philosophy.
• His Morphology of the Folk Tale was published in Russian in 1928.
• Although it represented a breakthrough in both folkloristics and morohology.

Narative stucture

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.

He also concluded that all the characters could be resolved into 8 broad character types in the 100 tales he analyzed:

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.

His theory applied to A music video

The music video I've chosen that would most relate to Vladimir Propp's tale theroy would be Michael Jackson's Thriller, because it demonstrate michael as the villan (zombie) on the other hand you could have Michael Jackson's BAD music video as Michael being the hero to the bullies.

Michael Jackson Thriller


Thriller - Music Video
Uploaded by dreadcentral. - Check out other Film & TV videos.


Michael Jackson BAD

Michael Jackson - Bad - Funny home videos are a click away