The Fairytale and Plot Structure

This book offers a detailed exploration of the plot genotype, the functional structure behind the plots of classical fairy tales. By understanding how plot genotypes are used, the reader or creative writer will obtain a much better understanding of many other types of fiction, including short stories, dramatic texts and Hollywood screenplays.

'Terence Patrick Murphy's book makes a fundamental contribution to narratology. By combining linguistics, philology, philosophy and folk studies, and thanks to a huge knowledge of the critical literature, Murphy thoroughly investigates the structure and the limits of Propp's major work. This book is recommended to everybody interested in the study of narrative and theory of literature.' Luciano Vitacolonna, University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy

'In this book, Professor Murphy challenges one of Vladimir Propp's central tenets that 31 action types constitute the vocabulary from which, in a canonical sequence, genuine tale plots can be composed. By comparing such sequences to genotypes, he offers a rich set of counterexamples which call for an unbiased reconsideration.' Sándor Darányi,

University of Borås, Sweden

Autorentext
Terence Patrick Murphy is Full Professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department at Yonsei University, South Korea. He was educated at the University of Toronto and Merton College, Oxford, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the history of the little magazine in England. He has published essays in such journals as the Journal of Narrative Theory; Narrative; Language and Literature and Style. His major research interest is the stylistics of short fiction and the semiotics of film screenplays

Inhalt

Table of Figures Preface Acknowledgements Note on the Author Note on the Selection of the Texts 1. The Origins of Plot Analysis 2. Character Theory: from Aristotle to the Cambridge Ritualists 3. Plot Structure: from Aristotle to the Cambridge Ritualists 4. From Veselovskian Motif to Proppian Function 5. A Proppian Analysis of Charles Perrault's Cinderella 6. False and Real Sequences in Ashputtel 7. The Robber Bridegroom: The Limits of Propp's Analysis 8. Fitcher's Bird: A Second Horrific Fairy Tale Genotype 9. The Frog Prince: The Doubled Pivotal Eighth Function 10. Beauty and the Beast: The Irresolute Nineteenth Plot Function 11. Puss-in-Boots: the Character of the Angelic Double 12. Tom-Tit-Tot: The Character of the Diabolic Double 13. Jack and the Beanstalk: The Hero's Journey 14. Little Red Riding Hood: The Defeat of the Heroine in the Struggle 15. The Story of the Three Bears: A Very Short Fairy Tale 16. Conclusion Appendix 1: The Formal Representation of 'The Fox and the Crow' Bibliography Index