the timboucher experience

Doing some research into the field of “narratology” which is a sub-field of structuralism and semiotics - both of which I think have good points, but are needlessly complex. An article on narratology (the study of narrative) from Hopkins did yield a nice little gem though.

Evidently, there was a dude named Algirdas Julien Greimas who created something which is referred to as the “actantial model” or the “actant model” which is a way of breaking down what happens in myths, folktales and other types of stories. Here’s a shitty diagram of it on another site. Wait, here’s a better page about it. Before I look at that page though, let me summarize what I understand of it so far…

In this model, you can identify six elements common to certain types of stories. These elements are referred to as “actants,” rather than actors because they may or may not be personified, or even characters. But they do drive the action in the story. The six actants he identifies are:

1. Subject - looking for the Object
2. Sender - of the Subject on its quest for the Object
3. Object - looked for by the Subject
4. Helper - of the Subject
5. Opponent - of the Subject
6. Receiver - of the Object to be secured by the Subject

This is easier to understand if you assign characters to each actant role. Another site does that using a generic folktale and I’ll use their examples. The only tricky part is that multiple actant-roles may be assigned to a character. Anyway, they refer to the young man or “hero” of a folktale as the subject. The king is the sender, because he sets the hero out on his quest. His quest is to locate the object. In their example, the object of his quest is the Princess. She is the thing which the king sends the hero to locate. Along the way, the hero is helped in his quest by a wise old man. The opponent whom he must overcome in order to acquire the object (rescue the princess) is a troll. The role of receiver is one that gets doubled up on a character. In their model, the hero is both the subject, as well as the receiver. When the hero rescues the princess, he is rewarded with her hand in marriage.

This is sort of a neat model, but also feels kind of weird and stilted to me. I’m gonna see if I can’t simplify it or switch it around a little bit to fit in with some other ideas I have about stories.

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