Tag: #1

Welcome to my blog!

I figured I should put in an exclamation point in an attempt to give my greeting a more excited and cheerful feel, but now I would just like to inform you that you shall never see it again unless in a quote or to convey extreme sarcasm or irony.

Of a gif. Gifs are valid.

Time to get to The Point.

This blog has been created as a part of a university assignment focused on the writing theory of narratology – which is, in its simplest form, defined as “the study of narrative structures” (Barry 1995, p. 222). Basically, if you’ve ever participated in a year eight English class, you’ve dealt with narratology. If you’ve ever read a fairy tale or seen a Disney movie, you’re probably already familiar with Vladimir Propp’s Functions and Seven Spheres of Action – you just don’t know it.

To study narratology is to consider both the function and the structure of a story, and subsequently ferret out the basic and recurring ‘tropes’ of narratives (thanks so much for forcefully injecting that word into my vocabulary, internet). For example, a family member is absent, and it turns out this is because the villain has involved that family member in their dastardly scheme, egad! Or perhaps the hero receives their quest from an ailing family member and is sent out into the world to save their island, find their confidence, and return the Heart of Te Fiti in a stunning victory against human greed and (let’s be honest here) the damage climate change and pollution is doing to Polynesian islands. I may be getting too specific.

Returning once again to The Point, this blog will primarily be looking at the study of narratology, as it is the theory I will be basing my later assignment on. However, this blog will not be used just for the study of this theory – as this is an English blog, I will be using it as a dumping ground for “mini-essays” on theories I am interested in, story and character ideas, scene and text analysis, and pretty much anything else that will help me to write my stories in the next two months.

Now prepare to laugh at me as I use the Harvard Referencing Guide to fully and (hopefully) completely correctly reference a gif in a university assignment.

References:

Barry, P 1995, Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory, 2nd edn, Manchester University Press, Manchester.

Giphy 2015, Brooklyn Nine Nine Hot Damn Gif, Giphy, viewed 13 August 2019, <https://giphy.com/gifs/transparent-hot-damn-VjSKLk6JxBsIw>.

Tenor 2017, Moana Gif, Tenor, viewed 13 August 2019, <https://tenor.com/view/moana-gif-8462496>.