This weeks lecture was a enlightening insight into the world of narrative which I found especially interesting due to the fact I am studying Cinema Studies as my elective, a line which I really like and has resonated with me post lecture is the following notion…

everything is story//story is everything

“The stuff of story is alive but intangible”
Robert Mckee, Story p.135
This expresses the notion that a story fictional or non fictional exists within the media context and comes to life within the form, while drawing the audience within it physically the audience is unable to physically engage with it, the notion of story coming to life is the idea of  Story being contingent on cause and effect.

Within this idea we see that the notion of cause and effect or Causality being crucially ruled by the following elements of constructive presentation character development, Plot and Resolution.

One of the earliest examples of a literary analysis of this sort, (breaking apart a story and analysing it) was seen through Aristotle’s poetics, which are renown as the first attempt at literary criticism.

Later a notable name in regard to literary criticism is Joseph Campbell; who is behind the theory of  The hero with a thousand faces, which  outlines what we know as the heroes journey, while addressing what we identify as the protagonists progression.

(heres a little word porn for u)
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day to a region of super natural wonder fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory won the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” Joseph Campbell.

Early cultural examples of the Hero with a thousand faces are seen strongly within religion and alternative mindsets:
The prophet Mohammed encountered this idea of heroes journey through the delivery of the Quran.
Buddha’s journey toward enlightenment.
Jesus of nazareth.
Most hero with a thousand faces is a typically retrospectively applied theory.

During this weeks lectorial we also did an exercise were we mapped out the High and Lows emotionally and during the plot points:

MULAN: AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER HIGH AND LOW EXERCISE
Begins: High seeing her charisma and her seeming relatable.
Low: Seeing she going through the wife training seems to be ill equipped to be a wife, thus in the culture bringing dishonour on her family.
Low: Her fathers mandatory enlistment in the war.
High: Her charisma kicks in and she cuts off her hair in a kick ass montage that sees little Mulan riding off to war.
Low: She’s a shitty solider.
Low: She doesn’t get along with the other men.
Low: She gets kicked out of the army due to incompetence.
High: She meets the challenge of climbing the pole with weights to reach the arrow
High: She gets progressively better at training and becoming a warrior.
THEY RIDE OFF TO BATTLE
Low: The other troops were killed by the Mongolian invaders
Low: They get ambushed by the Mongolian invaders.
High: Mulan uses her initiative and shoots the rocket into mountain.
Low:  She gets wounded
Low: They find out she is a woman
High: Her life is spared
Low: She is kicked out of the army.
High: She saves the day in the end
High: Her and Shang fall in love
High: They get married
High: They have little warrior babies
(          ^^^^Not confirmed^^^^       )