Thursday 1 October 2015

Propp's character archetypes

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED + WHAT I CAN APPLY

Vladimir Propp was a soviet scholar and folklorist who analysed the basic plot components of fairy tales to identify their basic narrative elements. He did this by breaking the fairy tales into different sections.
Through these sections, Propp was able to define the tales into a series of sequences.
At first he had divided them into 31 different sections. However, he soon realised that those 31 sections could be resolved into 7 broad character functions.

Essentially, these were the seven basic character types also known as archetypes:

  1. The villain - The one that struggles against the hero
  2. The donor - The one that prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object
  3. The magical helper - The one that helps the hero in his quest
  4. The princess or prize - The hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of the villain. The story often ends when the hero marries the princess bu beating the villain
  5. The dispatcher - The character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off 
  6. The hero - Reacts to the donor and marries the princess
  7. The false hero - The one that takes the credit for the hero's actions or tries to marry the princess

Analysing Harry Potter in terms of Propp's character archetypes:






In the case of Harry Potter, the Villain would be Voldemort since he is the one always fighting against the Hero Harry Potter. The Dispatcher and Donor would be Dumbledore, since he is the one that always helps Harry by providing him information about the "Horcruxes" and sending him the magical "Gryffindor sword" whenever he needs it. The False Hero, would in this case be Draco Malfoy, since he keeps taking credit for Harry's actions by trying to be better than Harry is at everything. For example, he always wants to be better than harry at "Quidditch".
The Magical Helper's would be Ron and Hermione, since they are supporting and helping Harry in each of the eight Harry Potter movies. For example, they are helping him to find "The Chamber of Secrets", Hermione helps him save his godfather "Syrius Black" and in the end they all fight against Voldemort together.

As we also see in the very last Harry Potter movie, Ginny (Ron's little sister) turns out to have been the Princess all along. This we know since Harry ends up marrying her.

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