Todorovs Narrative

Theory

Traditionally, narrative structures followed a formula which was identified by the theorist Tzvetan Todorov.
Todorov studied classic fairy tales and stories.
He discovered that narratives moved forward in a chronological order with one action following after another. In other
words, they have a clear beginning, middle and end.
Todorov also suggested that the characters in the narrative would be changed in some way through the course of the
story and that this would be evident by the resolution.
This traditional story format is known as a linear narrative:

Steps

What happens

The narrative starts with an equilibrium

An action or character disrupts the equilibrium

A quest to restore the equilibrium begins

The narrative continues to a climax

Resolution occurs and equilibrium is restored

Most episodes of Sherlock follow this traditional narrative structure.

Sherlock and Watson are relaxing at the start of the episode, then an action or character will do something that
creates a case for them to solve.
They begin their quest to find a solution and apprehend the villain.
The narrative continues until they confront the villain at the climax.
Once the disruption is resolved and the equilibrium is restored, Sherlock and Watson can relax again.
BBC. (). What is narrative?.
That is until another case comes to their attention in the next episode.

Available:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/educatio
n/guides/zqdhrdm/revision/3.
Last accessed 29th Sep 2016.

Todorovs Narrative
Theory

Narrative theory is currently enjoying a major burgeoning of interest in North America and throughout the world, with
especially strong activity in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium, Israel, and China. Narrative
theory starts from the assumption that narrative is a basic human strategy for coming to terms with fundamental elements of
our experience, such as time, process, and change, and it proceeds from this assumption to study the distinctive nature of
narrative and its various structures, elements, uses, and effects.
More specifically, narrative theorists study what is distinctive about narrative (how it is different from other kinds of
discourse, such as lyric poems, arguments, lists, descriptions, statistical analyses, and so on), and how accounts of what
happened to particular people in particular circumstances with particular consequences can be at once so common and so
powerful. Thus a key concern is whether narrative as a way of thinking about or explaining human experience contrasts with
scientific modes of explanation that characterize phenomena as instances of general covering laws. Narrative theorists, in
short, study how stories help people make sense of the world, while also studying how people make sense of stories.

To this end, narrative theorists draw not only on literary studies but also on ideas from such fields as rhetoric,
(socio)linguistics, philosophical ethics, cognitive science (including cognitive and social psychology), folklore, and gender
theory to explore how narratives work both as kinds of texts and as strategies for navigating experience. Narratives of all
kinds are relevant to the field: literary fictions and nonfictions, film narratives, comics and graphic novels, hypertexts and
other computer-mediated narratives, oral narratives occurring during the give and take of everyday conversation, as well as
narratives told in courtrooms, doctors' offices, business conference roomsindeed, anywhere. Because of the pervasiveness
of narrative in our culture and the diversity of the texts, media, and communicative situations narrative theory examines,
narrative theory constitutes an exciting new frontier of English Studies, one that promises to bring English Department
faculty and students into closer contact with their counterparts in a variety of social-scientific, humanistic, and other
disciplines.
Sullivan. (). What is Narrative
Theory?. Available:
http://projectnarrative.osu.edu/
about/what-is-narrative-theory.
Last accessed 29th Sep 2016