Applying Narrative Theories To 'The Shining'

'The Shining' is a 1980 psychological horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Stephen King.

We researched 4 narrative theorists and attempted to apply their theories to 'The Shining'.

Tzvetan Todorov

Todorov suggests that stories begin in equilibrium, where opposing forces are in balance. But this is disrupted by a problem or event. The main body of the film is the problem being corrected. The film ends with a new state of equilibrium. The equilibrium in The Shining is disrupted when Jack, a stay at home author, living a fairly normal life gets a new job and then has to move into the hotel. Equilibrium is apparently restored at the end of the film after Wendy and Danny defeat Jack and escape.

Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp was a theorist who looked at the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. He identified 8 'character functions

1 - The Villain.
2 - The Hero.
3 - The Donor.
4 - The Helper.
5 - The Princess.
6 - Her Father.
7 - The Dispatcher.
8 - The False Hero.

We attempted to apply these character types to the characters in 'The Shining'. For example:

The Donor/Helper - Dick Halloran
Halloran could be thought as the 'Donor' character as he helps Danny discover that he has the ability of 'The Shining'. At the end of the movie, the vehicle that Halloran brought to the hotel was used by Wendy and Danny to escape.

The Hero - Wendy and Danny
Wendy and Danny both fit into the role of 'The Hero'. Danny leads Jack into the maze and tricks him by brushing away his snowy footprints, and escaping. Jack dies in the maze, leaving Danny as the hero for defeating him, and Wendy for fighting back throughout.

The Princess - Wendy
The Princess is generally seen as a 'prize' to The Hero. Wendy is the prize for Danny when he gets out of the maze. They escape together for a 'happily ever after' ending.

The Villain - Jack/The Hotel
Jack is seen as the main Villain, as he goes insane and tries to kill his family. He is a villain in the classic sense. But when looking at the movie differently, we can also personify the Hotel as a Villain, because if it wasn't for all the 'supernatural' activity during their stay, then maybe nothing would've happened.


Claude Levi-Strauss

Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of “Binary oppositions" which means they are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of the media texts. For example: Past/present, Normal/strange, Good/evil etc.
The Shining follows these binary oppositions to an extent. For example, The ISOLATION of the hotel compared to the CIVILIZATION of their normal setting.


David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson
Bordwell and Thompson defined narrative as "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space." Narrative shapes material in terms of time and space by defining where things take place, where they take place and how quickly they happen. Narrative can use technical effects to manipulate time and space. This is mainly done through the use of flashbacks and flashforwards, slow motion, speeding up, jumping between places and times through use of cross cutting. Flashbacks and forwards are utilized within The Shining, such as Danny seeing future events and Jack seeing past events