The Two Principles of Narrative is a reading taken from Tzvetan Todorov’s book, Genres in Discourse, which was initially written in French in 1978 and later translated in 1990. In this particular reading, Todorov’s aim is to elucidate the organizations of narratives and the ways in which it is perceived. He draws on the theories and texts of other authors to further support his ideas as well as modifies and analyzes them in his own way.
In this text, Todorov continuously provides numerous examples from other authors analyses, stories, and tales to further support and exemplify his arguments. He begins by providing an example of a narrative which consists of a man, Ricciardo, who tries to win over Catella, another protagonist in the story. This, Todorov states, contains the sequences which are easily distinguished as a narrative. He suggests that a narrative consists of the “unfolding of an action, change, and difference.” He continues by demonstrating the links between the actions that unfold in a narrative implying that there is a causal relationship between each one and each action relies on the other. Furthermore, Todorov introduces the idea of temporality and its association with narratives, duration time, and description, a continuous time frame. He follows by assigning the term ‘fiction’ to the combination of both narrative and description. He describes narratives as the “chronological and sometimes causal linkage of discontinuous units.”
Drawing on Propp’s analysis of Russian fairy tales, which states that all fairy tales consist of 31 functions that are at the same level and related to each other through chronological order, Todorov further discusses his own claims stating that not all functions are necessary in order for it to be a narrative, suggesting that a hierarchical order must be introduced. He begins by presenting five obligatory elements to analyze the fairy tale “The Swan-Geese”: “the opening situation of equilibrium, the degradation of the situation, the state of disequilibrium observed by the protagonist, the process of regaining equilibrium, and the reestablishment of the initial equilibrium.” Without the complete five steps, Todorov asserts that the narrative would then lose its meaning. However, if the hierarchical order is implemented, Todorov argues that succession is not the only organization in narratives, but transformation as well.
Todorov explains that the natures of these transformations include: negation, which is the changing of one thing to the opposite, mode, and intention. He extracts from the stories he mentioned earlier, to provide examples for each transformation. Moreover, Todorov identifies two types of organizations: mythological, which includes both succession and transformation, and gnoseological, which is the “narrative organization in which the event itself is less important than our perception of it, and the degree of knowledge we have of it.” He then asserts that his intention is not to categorize each narrative into two classifications but to be able to explain the differences between each of them. Further stating that to do that, we must look for the “qualitative and quantitative predominance of certain transformations, not for their exclusive presence.” “La Quete du Graal”, is an example of a transformation of knowledge, it “consists of the reinterpretation of events that have already taken place”. Implying that, in the beginning, we assume that we have the knowledge of what is going on and what will happen, but as the events start to unfold we start to give new meanings to the characters and the actions happening. An example provided was of the character Lancelot who we presumed was “strong and perfect” but turned out to be “an incorrigible sinner”. In this organization, the question is now what happens next but how it happens, which refers to the gnoseological organization rather than the mythological one. Todorov provides another narrative in relation to the transformation of knowledge mentioning mystery and detective stories, in which it constitutes the story of crime where the crime is committed but we are unaware of the details, and of investigation, which goes over the details and is a “story of learning”. These types of narratives, Todorov claims, has a “definite end” as we already know that the crime will be solved however are more interested in how and why it happens. Although these narratives are crucially about the acquiring of knowledge, he stresses that other types of organizations should not be excluded as they are still present.
Other transformations possessing the same formal properties but not the same process is what Todorov calls ‘subjectivation’. This is what he describes as the ‘personal reaction or response to an event’. Furthermore, he provides two ways of judging transformation: formative power, the ability to form a narrative sequence independently, and evocative power of action. Finally, Todorov provides another type of narrative organization, ideological. In this organization, it is more about the “actions linked through the intermediary of an abstract formula”. He supports this theory by providing another example of the story of Constant’s “Adolphe”. This is about desire and the idea of wanting something and fleeing from it. He also mentions the morality aspect included in the story and how narratives can also help us make sense of the world around us. Thus, the same abstract logic is demonstrated by the separate actions of the different characters. Todorov concludes by emphasizing the importance of narratives in our society, especially in cinema and that his concern is less of what happens in a narrative, but more of how it happens.
Todorov’s theories and distinctions on narratives are certainly apparent in all texts and other forms of media. When watching a movie or reading a book, most often, the story follows a chronological order with events succeeding each other in forms of causal relationships as Todorov mentioned. If these characteristics were not evident, the text or any other form of media would confuse the audience due to their expectations. Furthermore, in terms of the five essential elements in analyzing narratives, I do not wholly concur with the idea that all five elements are obligatory as some end with the state of disequilibrium and can still be considered as a whole narrative. However, I do agree that not all functions mentioned by Propp may be accounted with the same importance as each other since, after the elimination of some of those functions, the narrative remained the same. Todorov was able to clearly distinguish the form of gnoseological organization through the transformation of knowledge. Even though the events have already unfolded, it does not imply that it is no longer interesting as the main idea here is how the events unfolded the way they did rather than wondering what will happen next. However, one thing to speculate is that while Todorov mentions the term subjectivation as the ‘personal reaction or response to an event’, he does take this into account when he is retelling the stories that he provided as examples. Todorov points out that narratives, especially cinema, are a crucial way of understanding our society and the world we live in. Since this was written a while back, I disagree that cinema is the most important form of narrative with the technological evolution and the vast variety of media forms today. These different organizations and principles of narratives are crucial to the study of communication since all forms of media encompasses a degree of structuralism, from news to Hollywood movies. Additionally, the ideas that Todorov presented such as the cause and effect relationship, presented in plenty of communication and media forms such as news and television. Subjectivation is demonstrated through television as well. People are constantly debating on how they interpret what they’ve consumed.
Conclusively, Todorov’s analysis on the genres and narratives is fundamental in understanding the ways our society operates. The five obligatory elements are a simple way of understanding how narratives are constructed. While narratives frequently are associated with succession, transformation is a crucial part as well. From the transformations of intentions, modes, negations, and knowledge, we can clearly understand the different principles of narratives. From my personal observation, structuralism indeed exists and while the stories we encounter differ slightly from each other, the forms of narratives Todorov discusses is clearly evident.