Todorov narrative theory

 Introduction

Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian-French philosopher who had lived in France since 1963 during his life span he had written a lot of essays and books detailed several theories of his. One of his most influential theory was his narrative theory. Todorovs narrative theory details the different sections of a given narrative in the films and multimedia content of today. Todorovs theory transcends past whether a film as a clear "beginning", "middle" and "end" but rather states a film consist of an "equilibrium", "a disruption", "realization", "restored order" and "equilibrium again".

Equilibrium

Equilibrium refers to stability, this is the beginning of the film, this is the part of the film where the characters are going around living their every day lives unaware of the events that are about to unfold before them. Content creators achieve a state of equilibrium by incorporating a lot of content that the audience at home are familiar with and can relate with into the scene, a fine example of this could be a middle aged woman returning home from work only to head off and pick her children from their primary school or a teenager having am argument with their parents. The content creator knows that these are part of the everyday scenery of an average person their by making the scene canny to the audience allowing them to make a mental link that this part of the story is the "normal/average" part or better yet the equilibrium.

Disruption and Realisation

Disruption refers to the part of the film that is uncanny to both the audience and the characters that exist in this diegesis world. This part of the film signifies the beginning of the adventure or even the beginning of the unrest as it "rips" the characters out of their everyday lives and violently tosses them into a "realm" of uncanniness, the audience is then also disrupted by this sections are they had already made a mental realisation that the events that occurred during the equilibrium of the film also transpire during their everyday lives but know are faced with an unsettling sense of uncanniness but cannot do anything but watch the events unfold before them through the eyes of the characters, because the audience had already made these links with characters their can project themselves onto the characters as they embarked on during the film.

Restored order

Restored order refers to the part of the film where the characters attempt to repair the disruption that had occurred earlier during the film. It is at this point that the audience see the characters begin to develop. The content creators used this point at the film to showcase the characters emotions are their different responses to each stimuli this allows the audience to further strengthen the link that they had made to the character most similar to them, as the audience once again make a canny link to the ways in which each character handles the position that they are in. Restored order is very crucial to the narrative of the film as not only does it showcase character development but it also ties each individual uncanny plot hole together thereby making the viewing experience canny for the audience again.

Return to equilibrium

Return to equilibrium refers to the "general" ending off the film as everything returns to "normal" and a state of canny that the audience is familiar with. This allows the audience of the film to evaluate the personal journey that they had taken during the film my projecting themselves into a canny character. The return to equilibrium also signifies the return to a state of stability and for the most part a happy ending.