What's the word for the kind of character Piglet is?

December 19, 2006 12:00 PM

English majors? I'd like to read about how elements of narrative are categorized and labeled

Like most people in junior high I learned about elements of plot like rising action, climax, falling action and types of characters like the protagonist and the antagonist.

I'd like to learn about what sort of academic exploration there is of this type of thing on a finer scale - is there a name for that Dickensian first paragraph where the young man describes his situation in life - how his parents died and how many pounds a year he has - before getting into the plot? There have to be more than two types of identified characters - what are they and what are they called? I'm looking for resources, accessible books, online links would be great but I don't know if the subject is too esoteric.

posted by nanojath to writing & language (9 comments total)

narratology?
posted by juv3nal at 12:10 PM on December 19, 2006

I think juv3nal got your main answer.

For your Dickensian question: it is

EXPOSITION : The part(s) of a narrative or play in which the author sets forth essential information about the characters, the current situation, or past events. A component of narrative structure (q.v.)

from here.

Likewise, piglet is a foil.

FOIL : A type of minor character (q.v.) who complements a main character.

I don't understand your final question.
posted by JeremiahBritt at 12:11 PM on December 19, 2006

see also:
Vladimir Propp
Mikhail Bakhtin
posted by juv3nal at 12:16 PM on December 19, 2006

And not forgetting, the best-thing-I-would-not-have-read-without-having-studied-lit-in-college: Roland Barthes' S/Z.
posted by juv3nal at 12:20 PM on December 19, 2006

There's a lot of material on this in Folklore. Vladimir Propp, as mentioned, wrote the seminal paper on structure, 'The Morphology of the Folktale', some excerpts and a brief summary.

As to the kind of character Piglet is, you need the Motif Index, whereby every element in folk narrative has been classified. As you can see from the first link, Cruel Stepmother is S31. Now who said academics take the beauty out of stories?
posted by einekleine at 12:24 PM on December 19, 2006

Definitely look into Propp and the Aarne-Thompson categorization of folktales. "Formalism" (or formalist thought) is a good starting points of inquiry.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 12:52 PM on December 19, 2006

Dude.
posted by Phred182 at 1:20 PM on December 19, 2006

Indeed formalism, and also see structuralism. If you can make contact with a formalist/structuralist academic, they can turn you on to such a pool of resources that you'll wish you hadn't asked. Back when formalism was in vogue, there was an idea that all the elements of fiction would eventually be categorized. I even remember reading some cockamamie paper suggesting that eventually, we would be able to predict human behavior through fiction, because our understanding of the relationship between the two would be so solid.

But I'm here to tell you - as someone who majored in English and then got a master's in screenwriting - you're not going to find a single agreed-upon set of tropes. Novels are categorized differently from plays, which are different from movies, etc. One road will take you to the structure of drama as originally laid out by Aristotle in the Poetics, another will take you to Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, who will tell you that what you're looking for are really elements of your own psyche. Let me know when you find the big answer; I want it as much as you do.
posted by bingo at 3:04 PM on December 19, 2006

These are a bunch of great answers to get me started, thank you all very much.
posted by nanojath at 8:05 PM on December 19, 2006