Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

Beauty and the Beast
, the Beast warns Beauty
not on any account to go into the west wing of the castle (the interdiction), where-
upon Beauty, er, goes into the west wing of the castle. The fourth of Propp’s functions
sees the arrival of the character role of ‘Villain’. The Villain attempts to make 
‘reconnaissance’ on the Hero, finding out about his whereabouts or about some
vulnerability or weakness. And thus the pattern of the model develops, up to a total
of thirty-one possible narrative plot functions.
Now, the point of Propp’s model is not to imply that 
all
narratives realise 
all
func-
tions. Nor is it to suggest that all narratives, in their manifestation as discourse, follow
a straightforwardly linear chronology. Suffice it to say, there are numerous stylistic
devices which give a stamp of originality to narrative as far as the actual telling of
the story is concerned (see strands 6, 7 and 8). However, what Propp’s model does
is to try to define a genre of narrative discourse, the fairy tale, through a circum-
scribed set of core organisational parameters. How those parameters might be applied
to more contemporary narratives is the focus of the next sub-unit.
The morphology of contemporary narrative
Thus far, the Proppian morphology may look at first glance like a rather antiquated
analytic model, a model whose scope of reference embraces nothing more than the
quaint oral narratives of a then fledgling Soviet Union. True, contemporary narra-
tives do seem a long way off from the Russian folk story of the 1920s. However, as
with any sound theoretical model, it is a central precept of the Proppian framework
that it should have universal relevance. That means that it is designed to have the
explanatory power to account for folk narratives beyond the specific corpus used in
the design of the model, and even for narratives that had not even come into being
at the time the model was developed.
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Let us consider, in turn, two cases where the application of the Proppian model
offers some interesting insights about narrative structure. Both film narratives, the
first is Disney’s cartoon 
The Jungle Book
which is based, rather loosely it has to be
said, on Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Mowgli stories’. The second is Chris Columbus’s feature
film 
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
which is based, more closely this time,
on the first instalment of J. K. Rowling’s hugely successful series of ‘Harry Potter’
novels. What follows is a short exploration of the types and degree of coalescence
that there is between the core categories of Propp’s model and the key plot advancing
functions of both films.
First of all, to Disney’s animated film 
The Jungle Book
which was released in 1967.
Realising the first of Propp’s functions, absentation, Mowgli the ‘mancub’ is displaced
from his parents and home and is found wandering in the jungle. Mowgli, clearly
fulfilling the character role of ‘Hero’, then acquires a Helper, a character role dually
occupied by Bagheera the panther and later by Baloo the bear. Both friends warn
Mowgli of the dangers of being in the jungle on his own (the ‘interdiction’ func-
tion), advice which of course Mowgli ignores (violation of the interdiction).
Numerous other Proppian functions are realised thereafter. In a famous and hugely
comic scene from the film, the Villain, Shere Khan the tiger, carries out reconnais-
sance on the Hero by interrogating the snake, Kaa. The Villain then attempts to take
possession of the Hero (the sixth of Propp’s functions) but in the course of the
struggle injures Baloo, Mowgli’s protector. This second event realises the eighth func-
tion of the model where the Villain hurts a member of the Hero’s circle of family
and friends. Hero and Villain eventually join in combat (function sixteen), and in
the course of the struggle Mowgli uses fire (function twelve, the intercession of a
magical agent) in order to scare off Shere Khan (function eighteen, the Villain is
vanquished). Mowgli, having been enticed by the ‘water girl’ and her song, eventu-
ally goes back to the ‘man village’, and so the film concludes with the realisation of
function twenty, the Hero returning home, and with perhaps the suggestion that the
Hero will eventually be married or crowned (function thirty-one).
Clearly, not all of the thirty-one plot advancing functions are present in Disney’s
cartoon, but those that are realised square very closely indeed with the key Proppian
categories. This is not to suggest that the makers of Disney’s film worked to any kind
of explicit blueprint of narrative structure – a copy of Propp is unlikely to have been
to hand in the production process! The main issue is really about what makes a good
story. Disney’s cartoon draws out, from a finite list of universalised functions, a
specific selection of plot advancing devices. What is interesting is that even though
their particular settings, ‘dramatic personae’ and historical periods may change, a
great many Disney films work to the same basic plot typology.
Columbus’s film 
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
(2000) is some fifty
minutes longer than 
The Jungle Book
and is pitched at older viewers, so its even fuller
display of Proppian functions is perhaps no surprise. A running commentary on all
realisations in the film would be rather dull, so Table B5.1 shows the main connec-
tions between Propp’s model and the narrative functions realised in 
Harry Potter
.
The left of the table displays a category of the model, numbered in accordance with
Propp’s own sequence of functions, and on the right of the table is a short summary
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Table B5.1
Propp’s model and 
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone