A Structural Analysis of Samad Behrangi and Charles Perrault’s Stories Based on Propp and Bremond’s Models

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of French Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 assistant professor at the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of French Language and Literature; Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

One of the main areas of interest for researchers regarding folktales has been the structure of these stories. Knowing that the Aarne-Tampson classification system could not be fully applied to fairytales,Vladimir Propp sought a more accurate model.For this reason,after analyzing one hundred Russian folktales,he came to the conclusion that despite their apparent diversity,fairytales are in fact identical in terms of heroes and delivered messages:the number of delivered messages is limited to thirty-one and their sequence is similar to one another.Continuing the researchers' efforts to determine the structure of fairytales,French semiologist Claude Bremond argued that each story begins with a balanced state; yet, an event changes that initial stability,resulting in an unbalanced situation.Eventually,after the protagonist reaches his/her goal or fails to achieve it,a balanced state is formed again.In this article,four stories by Samad Behrangi and four stories by Charles Perrault,a seventeenth-century French writer,have been studied using Propp and Bremond’s theories.Results indicate that Propp’s model,unlike the model presented by Bremond,cannot fully be applied to analyze the structure of the studied stories.

Keywords

References

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Research in Contemporary World Literature
Volume 25, Issue 2
March 2021
Pages 540-561

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