Narrative Theory

We applied theories and ideas of four narrative theorists to 'The Shining'. Propp was a Russian critic who explored the underlying structures of folk tales and he came up with a set of universal character and narrative functions which he thought were the basis for all stories. His ideas fit with 'The Shining' because you can apply the characters in the film to the character functions. However I feel that Propps theory isn't the best of the four to explain and help understand the narrative of 'The Shining' because you can apply certain characters to more than one function and also there is 'Harlem' who can arguably act as the helper, donor and the dispatcher because of his contribution to the family. But you could also propose that he acts as a hero in the way he comes to the mother and sons rescue at the end of the film. Propp also explains exact things in a narrative that occur, in a list of 31 events in folk tales. I think that many of these do apply to 'The Shining', although not in correct order to how Propp has set out his functions and 'The Shining' ends on number 21 rather than the false hero claim at the end of the theory. This allows me to evaluate Propp as having a few ideas that can link to the film but when analyzing overall, the film dosent completely fit with his theory.

The second theorist is Todorov, he also suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium where any potential opposing force are in balance but are then disrupted by some event, setting a chain of events that are restored and then end in a new equilibrium. The two narrative structures are named 'classic Hollywood' or 'classic realist'. Also another structure of hero meets villian, theres a quest then a closure. I think that this dosent apply to 'The Shining' because of the time being messed up, and the fact that the narrative does not start with a equilibrium but an abrupt start to the family beginning a new life for the winter at the hotel. The villain can be multiple characters of Jack, Grady, The hotel itself and the way time manipulates Jack into insanity, however by showing the picture dated in 1921 at the end, the narrative structure cannot simply be based on a disequilibrium of Jack going insane, because we do not know the mystery behind him being at the same age in 1921.
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The third theorist is Claude Levi-Strauss whose theory is based on binary opposites, for example, good and evil, human and aliens, normal and strange. He wasn't applying the narrative theory to an order but more so the themes of the narrative/plot. This I think applies quite well and gives us start of understanding 'The Shining' because we can definitely write a list of binary opposites that allow us to know what the themes of the film are and what goes on.
The binary oppisites of 'The Shining' are: Good vs Evil, Sanity vs Madness, Natural vs Unnatural, Past vs Present, Cause vs Effect, Community vs Isolation and Normal vs Abnormal.

I think, however that the fourth theorist is the theorist with the most relevant theory to 'The Shining'. Bordwell and Thompson wrote a book called 'Film Art:An introduction' and they define narrative as a 'chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space'. They do not put together a full theory of narrative but they apply an interesting idea of a narrative starting with a situation, a series of changes occur in a pattern of cause and effect, then finally a new situation arises that brings an end to the narrative. The technical techniques in films like slow motion, flashbacks, cross cutting shows typical ways of changing time and places. The normality of directors is that they often cut between scenes or cross cut to show a change in time so that we, as the audience, follow the narrative but we don't see every single detail of time, for example, if someone was called to go to another country, we would see the phone conversation, then the next shot could be of them getting off the plane in the other country.
The way 'The Shining' can be understood is using this narrative theory, the audience can see that the film manipulates time in numerous ways. By simple use of time gradually decreasing in the titles that appear every so often, starting from 'one month', to 'one week' to 'Tuesday' and finally ending with 'Saturday', time change is slowing down, maybe to imply that Jacks insanity is growing faster and faster or perhaps, to confuse the audience as we lose track of time, we don't know as the audience what Tuesday or Saturday it is, the dates are not given, we just assume that they are in the middle of the 6 months over winter the family stay in the hotel for.

Another way of time defining the horror is that the picture at the end of the film of Jack aged as he is now in waiters outfit at the hotel is dated 1921, this confuses us and is something that remains unexplained, giving the film mystery with no real understanding over time.
Jack, also has sloppy time keeping, asking for the time, and having no sense of whats happening and when, he loses control of his mind and starts to see things like Grady, The Woman in the bath and the bartender with plenty of drinks on offer. This allows the audience to see that time has lost its importance to Jack, he feels that all the days have rolled into one long stay that has driven him to insanity.
Premonitions from the past have occurred as a kind of villain in the film, or things that will repeat themselves at some point in the film, giving the past a very vital role in the film because of repetition of events or things that are predictable. For example, the blood rushing out of the lift, the desire to kill ones family using the same weapon type (axe) and the twins, almost warning Danny about what is to come.
I think anniversaries is also important in the film because it was exactly ten years since Grady killed his family, however, the way that the characters are shown in the film shows Grady as a 1920's waiter, rather than a caretaker, and his words 'you've always been the caretaker' to Jack, may suggest that Jack, somehow has been the caretaker for the hotel since the 1920's. This idea lacks explanation but gives a suggestion of cause and effect, and how the use of time can be very important to a film.