Narrative Theory - The Shining

In this post i will explain the theories of the 4 major narrative theorists and apply them to  The Shining (1980).

The first of these theorists I will talk about is the Bulgarian structural linguist, Tzvetan Todorov. His idea is that the narrative starts with an equilibrium or a status-quo, in Layman's terms, normality. Then an event disrupts this equilibrium setting off a chain of events that ultimately end with a return to equilibrium or a resolution.

This theory has become the staple structure for majority of narratives, we have normality, something bad happens and is resolved, and this includes The Shining.

The film starts with our antagonist, Jack Torrence, taking a job as a caretaker in a hotel over the winter months, at the start he assures people that all is well and for a time it is yet eventually he starts to go insane, attacking his family and eventually is resolved when Jack dies in the hedge maze and his wife and son escape.So, the film starts with equilibrium, enters a state of disequilibrium and is resolved.

The second theorist is a man named Vladimir Propp, a Russian critic who after examining 100s of folk tales came up with his own standardization of narrative in much more detail than Todorov. His idea is that there are 31 different narrative functions, separated into 6 groups which are preparation, complication, transference, struggle, return and recognition. An example of one of these functions would be number 18, found in the "struggle" group, which reads "The villain is defeated". Propp argues that although all 31 functions may not be present in a particular narrative, each narrative will have events that can be related to the functions.
He also says that there are 7 character types that we can relate every character to, these are:

1. The Villain
2. The Doner (provider)
3. The Helper 
4. The princess (or sought-for person) and her father
5. The Dispatcher (Who sends our "Hero" on a quest)
6. The Hero or Victim
7. The false hero

Comparing these ideas to The Shining I fond that Propp's idea that everything can be related to the 31 functions was false, the film contains some scenes, such as the ending where we see the picture of the 1921 ball with what appeared to be Jack at the front doesn't fit into any of the functions, not only that but many of the character typed are shifted throughout the narrative if we apply every event to the functions. For example, the only one contacted and sent on a quest is Hallorann, the head cook, and whilst the functions state that this person is the hero we find he is in fact the donor as he leaves behind the snow-mobile to help Wendy and her son Danny escape.

When saying that this theory has some loose ends, it is important to remember these are meant to fit with old folk tales and not modern day cinema, in which some narratives may be more progressive and stray away from the standard ideas of both Todorov and Propp.

The third theorist is a man named Claude Levi-Strauss, a well known French Anthropologist who applied the ideas of binary opposites to narrative structure. These binary opposite were sets of opposite values which allow us to delve deeper into narrative than just looking at the order of events in the plot which are mainly outlined by Propp and Todorov. Examples of these binary opposites would be Good and Evil, one of the simpler opposites.

Of course, after analysis, The Shining has such binary opposites, these are:

• Isolation and Community (The isolated hotel)
• Past and Present (The "ghosts", hotels history and the ball picture)
• Madness and Sanity (Jack Torrance going insane)
• Good and Evil (Jack's family and Jack himself)
• Normal and Abnormal/Natural and Supernatural (The shining ability)

The Fourth and final theorist is a man named David Bordwell, who along with his wife Kristin Thompson who defined narrative as, and I quote "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space".

They believed that a narrative starts off with a single situation which evolves and transgresses through a chain of events, each one causing another to occur until one does occur that ends the narrative.

The also stated that narratives can bend time to further the story through various technical techniques such as flashbacks, replays of action, slow-mo, speeding up and jumping between places and time.

Such techniques can be seen in The Shining.

Time plays a big part as there are several techniques used like mentioned above that make us start to lose track of time like Jack has in the film. There are titles part way through the film which tell us a certain amount of time has passed before the next scene begins, they started off large and in periods of months and decreased to weeks and even specific days, to the point where it would just give us a day of the week leaving us in a state of confusion as we do not know when this day is.

In conclusion these theories can be related to most films, in my opinion Bordwell and Thompson's theory as well as the theory of binary opposites that Levi-Strauss mentions are the most flexible and I would argue can be applied to any narrative, whilst Propp's and Todorov's theories have holes in them and do not hold true to every type of narrative.

In some incarnations, Jack was fully aware of the time.