Narrative - Insidious

Narrative - Insidious

Narrative is a way of organising various spatial and worldy data into a cause and effect, chain of effects, with a beginning, middle and end. Narrative contains judgments about the nature of various events as well as demonstrates how it is is possible to know, and hence to narrate the events. Narative does this in 3 ways; structure, roles and codes.

Todorov looked at structure, and found 5 key stages of narrative, he carried out his research on russian tales in 1930, so his theory may be outdated. I have compared these 5 stages to a modern horror film (Insidious), to see how realistic Todorovs theory is in todays world.

1 - State of equilibrium

A

Insidious begins in a normal manner. Everything is calm, and Dalton and his family have just moved into a new house. Everything seems normal meaning there is a state of equilibrium. 

2. A disruption of that order 

One day Dalton hears a noise in the attic and he decides to go and check it out. When investigating the noise, he falls and bangs his head. That night Dalton goes to bed as normal but in the morning he does not wake. Dalton goes into a coma, His parents think this is down to the incident which happen the night before. The equilibrium has now been distorted.

3. A recognition that the order has been distrupted

Dalton returns home, still in a coma. He is kept in his room, where he is constantly monitored by medical equipment. His family begin to notice a few strange things occurring in the family house, these include blood prints on Daltons cover, weird noises from other rooms and noises coming from the baby monitor. The family then think that the house is haunted and decide to move house to getaway from the weird and spooky house. It is then when they notice that the haunted atmosphere and the unnatural things are following them. They then realise that it is not the house that it is haunted but it is Dalton that is haunted. This means that they have now noticed that something not right is happening.

4. An attempt to repair the damage begins

The family then decides to call Elise and her two assistants to help deal with the ghosts who are haunting the Lambert family. Elise (who previously helped Daltons father when he experienced a similar problem when he was younger) helps dalton by sending his Dad into 'The further' to guide dalton back to his body so that he will then wake up and all of the unexplainable things will stop occurring.

5. A state of new equilibrium is restored

Dalton then wakes up, as his dad has saved him from 'The Further'. Everything seems o have resumed back to normal. The family, who are still extremely cautious and aware begin to try and live normally again.

This example shows that Todorovs theory is still very much apparent in todays media.