Storytelling for Media. Joachim Friedmann
the help of Willie and Shorty (both helpers), Indiana Jones can defeat the vizier (opponent), save the children, and return the Sankara stone to the villagers.
Greimas’ approach is also important in coaching, as well as in economics and social sciences, for the analysis of narratives. Using the Greimas model, ANNE-MARIE SODERBERG examines a business takeover in Denmark and analyses the stories in which the workforce communicates their experiences with the merger in the form of narrative interviews (3–36). She can show that the six actants can be identified in each of these experiences.
The Cultural Anthropological Approach
Using a different methodological approach, script-writing instructor CHRISTOPHER VOGLER also comes up with a model that describes an ensemble of figures through its functions. Vogler builds primarily on the work of JOSEPH CAMPBELL, whose concept of the hero’s journey (see Chapter 9 Narrative Structure) has a considerable influence on the practice of storytelling. (In this text we will use the term “hero” regardless of the gender or whether the protagonist is human at all, similar to how the the single, gender-neutral word “actor” now can describe all those who act.) The anthropologist Campbell investigated a multitude of fairy tales, myths, religious narratives, and legends from all over the world. He identified recurring structural parameters whose sequence of action he describes as the transculturally and transhistorically effective monomyth: the shared single myth that exists throughout the world and throughout time. Also universally understood are the figures the hero of the monomyth encounters on his journey, who appear transculturally in a multitude of narratives. Campbell names them “archetypes of the collective unconscious” in relation to C.G. JUNG’S psychotherapeutic works. Vogler uses these theories for dramaturgy and also transfers them to film narratives, naming the following archetypal figures in a narrative:
hero
mentor
threshold guardian
shape-shifter
shadow
trickster
The hero is in most cases the main character of the story, like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. The mentor is his advisor or teacher, embodied in this case by Obi-Wan Kenobi. The shadow is the opponent of the hero, here Darth Vader. The threshold guardian watches over a threshold or boundary that the hero must cross throughout the narrative – the Empire’s stormtroopers want to prevent Luke from leaving Tatooine. The herald is to be understood analogously to Greimas’ sender, he confronts the hero with his task, just as R2D2 delivers the cry for help from Princess Leia to Luke. The shape-shifter is characterized by the fact that he can change his function again and again from the perspective of the hero and thus provides a moment of uncertainty or surprising turn, just as Han Solo first appears as a cynical mercenary, only to reappear at the decisive moment as an important friend who saves Luke’s life in the showdown. The trickster is an anarchic, often humorous character who is able to question the assumptions and certainties of both the hero and the audience time and again, as does C-3PO, whose inappropriate, ceremonial behaviour creates comic situations even in moments of extreme danger.
The peasant Joan of Arc (Jeanne D’Arc) led the French army to important victories in the Hundred Years’ War. The only direct portrait of Joan of Arc has not survived; this artist’s interpretation was painted between AD 1450 and 1500. Image in public domain.
It is not only in the labels that it becomes clear that Vogler defines his figures more narrowly than Greimas. At the same time, however, the ensemble’s function is broader than that of Propp or Greimas. For example, the shape-shifter has the ability to change roles several times. Sméagol from The Lord of the Rings, who in Vogler’s terminology would be a shape-shifter, transforms in Greimas’ terminology from a helper to an opponent, and finally again turns into the involuntary helper of the hero, Frodo.
Scientifically and theoretically, Vogler’s dramaturgical application of the archetype concept must be viewed critically. For Jung, who made his model applicable in psychotherapy, archetypes are not necessarily characters, but symbols and mythological allegories, which are important in the personality development of his patients. Nevertheless, Vogler’s model is useful in practice due to its unproblematic applicability to all kinds of narratives and the fact that it can be used in many areas such as marketing, film dramaturgy, or game design. In addition, it shows that the functions of certain figures can be repeatedly identified, transculturally and transhistorically. This applies not only to the archetypes described by Vogler. For example, the figure of the female warrior is present in a multitude of cultures, be it the Amazonian queen Penthesilea in ancient Greece, Mulan in Wei Dynasty China, Jeanne D’Arc in the Middle Ages in France, Snoop in the TV series The Wire, Katniss in The Hunger Games, or Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Likewise, the figure of the just outlaw can be identified in almost every culture, as Robin Hood in the European narrative tradition, as the robbers in the 14th-century Chinese novel Outlaws of the Marsh, or in modernity as the myth of Che Guevara. One could argue that Jeanne D’Arc and Che Guevara are not narrative figures but are anchored in reality. However, this shows only the power of these narrative archetypes and that the factual can be narrated just as much as the fictional, as is seen in the numerous rewrites of Jeanne D’Arc’s myth in successful novels, plays, operas, and films.
Using such transculturally-effective character functions or – in Vogler’s terminology – archetypes, while at the same time creating them in a new and unusual way, is a challenge and an opportunity for every storyteller.
2.2 Mimetic Figures
Narratology emphasizes the function as a decisive component in figure design. But a purely function-oriented figure can appear one-dimensional and is in danger of leading to a formulaic narrative. Conan the Barbarian can be clearly classified in his function, but he lacks the psychological depth of a real human being. The success of Marvel’s superheroes with the audience is due, among other things, to the fact that the authors equipped their characters – in addition to their function as superheroes – with a comprehensible everyday life, which was hardly the case with their competitor DC in the early 1960s. The Marvel superheroes are not only on the road in the name of justice, they also struggle with everyday problems that are perceived as lifelike and relevant by the young target group. Peter Parker, (a.k.a. Spider-Man), has to work as a photographer and let himself be bullied by his imperious boss J. Jonah Jameson in order to finance his studies. He has problems with his girlfriend, Mary Jane, and he tries to help his Aunt May, who lives in small, cramped conditions.
Aristotle’s postulate that acting people in stories are imitated is still used today in narrative research and is referred to as mimesis in reference to the ancient Greek term μίμησις, which means imitation. This mimetic dimension of figure design is emphasized above all by modern film dramaturgy – credibility and psychological depth of the figure are the focus here, and careful research is considered essential to the creation of such a figure. In fact, a series like the American medical drama ER or the novel Jamila by Chingiz Aitmatov would not develop its narrative power without exact knowledge of the milieu and the people. Regardless of the narrative function of the characters, the recipients have the impression that they are following the experiences of real people. Thus, detailed research of the material is also part of the storyteller’s tasks.
In narratives that depict a narrowly limited milieu, such as a hospital or crime series, this concept is more difficult to apply, and requires some further, supplementary methods. In a hospital series, the permanent members of the ensemble are all doctors or nurses, in a crime series, all are investigators. In addition, they all pursue the same goal, namely to heal people or to solve a case, and are therefore more or less identical in their functions.
American dramatic advisor LAURIE HUTZLER has developed a model for differentiating such figures in a psychologically credible way while at the same time classifying them functionally. She uses the so-called enneagram, a model