The fairytale and plot structure / Terence Patrick Murphy, Full Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, Yonsei University, South Korea.
| Author/creator | Murphy, Terence Patrick, 1964- author. |
| Format | Electronic |
| Publication | New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. |
| Description | 1 online resource |
| Supplemental Content | ProQuest Ebook Central |
| Subjects |
| Contents | The origins of plot analysis -- Character theory: from Aristotle to the Cambridge ritualists -- Plot structure: from Aristotle to the Cambridge ritualists -- From Veselovskian motif to Proppian function -- A Proppian analysis of Charles Perrault's Cinderella -- False and real sequences in Ashputtel -- The robber bridegroom: the limits of Propp's analysis -- Fitcher's bird: a second horrific fairy tale genotype -- The frog prince: the doubled pivotal eighth function -- Beauty and the beast: the irresolute nineteenth plot function -- Puss-in-boots: the character of the angelic double -- Tom-tit-tot: the character of the diabolic double -- Jack and the beanstalk: the hero's journey -- Little red riding hood: the defeat of the heroine in the struggle -- The story of the three bears: a very short fairy tale. |
| Abstract | From the time of the Classical era of Greece and Rome, literary theorists have been concerned with the subject of how the plots of stories are organized. In The Poetics, Aristotle put forward the crucial idea that a plot must possess sufficient amplitude to allow a probable or necessary succession of particular actions to produce a significant change in the fortune of the main character. In the early twentieth century, the Russian scholar Vladimir Propp put forward the radical idea that each of the plots in his corpus of a hundred Russian fairy tales consisted of a sequence of 31 functions executed in an identical order. In this way, Propp had provided a workable solution to the mystery of how that 'significant change in the fortune of the main character' might be brought about. In effect, what Propp had done was to discover the first plot genotype, the functional structure or compositional schema of a particular short fiction, the Marriage fairy tale. But Propp was mistaken in his belief that all plots were the same. Although the exact number of plot genotypes is still unclear, this number is not excessively great. Plot genotypes fall into set categories, which means that the analysis of a few important fairy tales will shed light on the way in which most fairy tales - and by extension most short stories and dramatic texts and Hollywood screenplays - are also organized. This study explores the plots of ten fairy tales to lay the foundations for a complete description of the plot genotype. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Source of description | Print version record. |
| Issued in other form | Print version: Murphy, Terence Patrick, 1978- Fairytale and plot structure 9781137547071 |
| Genre/form | Electronic books. |
| Genre/form | Criticism, interpretation, etc. |
| ISBN | 9781137547088 (electronic bk.) |
| ISBN | 1137547081 (electronic bk.) |
| ISBN | 9781137547095 |
| ISBN | 113754709X |
| ISBN | 9781349575435 |
| ISBN | 1349575437 |
| Standard identifier# | 10.1057/9781137547088 |
| Stock number | 841263 Palgrave Macmillan http://www.palgraveconnect.com |