The wizard of OZ: Analysis of Narrative theory
Narrative theorists have argued about different films having the same story or having the same structure.
Tzvetan Todorov argued that the same basic structure can be found in all stories. This structure is the equilibrium, which is normal life for the characters, a life before a problem or change has occurred. The equilibrium is disrupted by some kind of change or problem. The problem/ change is resolved and everything is restored. Then the story ends with a new equilibrium. Normal life (the equilibrium) tends to always be different after the disruption stages because the characters have changed over the course of the problem or their life has changed. For example, characters dying. Making their life different and therefore they have a new normal life.
Tzvetan Todorov’s theory can fit into the story of the wizard of OZ.
The film starts off with a girl, Dorothy and her dog, Todo running from a mean woman that lives nearby. She is soon surrounded by her family, her aunt and uncle who live on a farm, in the scene there are men that are working on the farm doing their everyday jobs. This is normal life for Dorothy, being on the farm even though she doesn’t tend to work. this normal life is initially disrupted by the mean women that is legally taking Todo away which is then followed by Dorothy leaving and then coming back searching for her aunt, she ends up being caught in a tornado. That is the disturbance in the film. The new equilibrium can’t be achieved until the problem is resolved and restores. The problem being that she wants to get home and doesn’t know how to get there. So through the film she meets people and animals and goes on an adventure through the land of OZ to resolve her problem. Near the end she meets the wizard of OZ, who tells her how to get home and resolves the problem. When she is home everything is restored and there forms the new equilibrium. There is a new equilibrium because the character has changed by the event that have happened. At first Dorothy was unappreciative of her life but after the disruption was resolved she was appreciative of her life.
While studying Russian fairytales Vladimir Propp recognised a series of recurring functions/ narrative strands. These functions are mostly seen in teenage action or adventure films.
For example, one of the functions that he noticed was that the hero leaves home near the beginning of the story. In the wizard of OZ, Dorothy is the hero for the people that live in the land of OZ and near the beginning of the film she decides to leave home because she doesn’t want Todo to be put down. Also another is that the hero meets a benefactor, in the wizard of OZ Dorothy meets the witch of the north who welcomes her to the land of OZ and helps her by giving her a magical gift, which is a pair of red shoes, this is another one of Propp’s functions; the hero receives a magical gift.
Also Propp said that the hero gains a helper. This is accomplished when Dorothy meets the scarecrow, the tin man and the cowardly lion, who join her on the adventure.
The villain attempts to stop the hero is some way. This was done in the wizard of OZ by the witch of the west poising the poppies. Another function is the hero is tested, interrogated, attacked, etc. in the wizard of OZ, Dorothy was captured and interrogated by the witch, which is then followed by another one of Propp’s functions whish is that the hero and villain join in direct combat and the villain is defeated/ the witch was defeated when Dorothy splashed water on her and she started melting.
Claude Levi Strauss looked more at there are stories unlike Todorov, looking at the structure of stories. Levi Strauss believed that stories were told to explain things, such as contradictions and therefore believed that a story would be full of binary opposites.
Looking at the wizard of OZ, the binary opposite that are most apparent is good and evil. Good winning over evil gives of the message that good wins and evil loses. Also two other binary opposites are hero and villain. In the wizard of OZ Dorothy is the hero and she seems to kill all the evil characters in the story and the wicked witch of the west is a villain as she wants to kill the hero. In Claude Levi Strauss’s theory having two opposites explains to the audience what a hero is and what a hero does and what a villain is and what a villain does.
Roland Barthes is a structurelist thinker who identified a number of codes (set of conventions, which help find the meaning of the story). Barthes believes that every story have the same codes and conventions behind them.
He came up with 5 codes. The first being the action code, this code is about seeing if there is something generic in the story, for example, in the wizard of OZ it is generic that the hero kills the villain and good wins over evil, which links to Propp’s narrative strands and Strauss’s binary opposites.
The second code is the semantic code. This is the character’s point of view that the story is told from. In the wizard of OZ the point of view shot is from Dorothy’s point of view. The story is about what Dorothy goes through and the audience sympathize with what she is feeling, whereas the film ‘wicked’ is from the witch’s point of view and the story follows the witch rather than the hero.
The third is the enigma code, which is that every story should have a problem or a mystery. In the wizard of OZ the problem is that Dorothy wants to go home, but doesn’t know how.
The fourth code is the referential code, which means the mise-en scene.
The fifth code is the symbolic code, which are symbolic connotations to help represent and portray certain characters and situations.
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