Author: Serhii Yaremko

Abstract

Many people around the world have idea about the Morphology of the Folktale today. In article One of the Ways the Functions of Dramatis Personae Discovered by Vladimir Propp to be Interpreted, I have shown that those functions are part of a set of literary clichés only. During the writing that paper, I was using my previous work Literary Clichés and the Era of Revolutions mainly in which I have formulated the concept of «Elementary episode» as well. That concept will be very useful during scientific exploration of literature. Now, I want to introduce the readers with it.

Keywords: elementary action, action, elementary episode, episode, literary criticism.

Introduction

My previous article One of the Ways the Functions of Dramatis Personae Discovered by Vladimir Propp to be Interpreted (Yaremko, 2023) was about the distribution of the literary clichés placed in one Class of folktales according to the Events of the society evolution. In this paper in general, I want to tell about my own innovation—the concept of «Elementary episode» which is able to make more easier a process of our exploring of literature. Current methods of the researching the same that were described in the mentioned article.

Episodes

«The Hero causes the Enemy to fall on the ground, and then the Enemy rises on the feet»—this episode has been observed partly in the Literary Clichés and the Era of Revolutions (Я., 2023), it manifests itself in fictions mainly when antagonist’s damaged body becomes regenerated. The episode means that Chaos is a revanchist-looser.

Elementary episode «The Hero helps the Friend, and then the Enemy punishes the Hero» can be seen in action «The Hero meets the hard shelling» (The Dark Valley (Prochaska, 2014)); it’s meaning in the imprisonment of the Second Servant after an unsuccessful attempting to hold the First Servant completely when that person is going to own the power in the society illegally.

Episode «A gymnast wins at the beginning and then the gymnast falls down» shows itself when a well-trained fighter counters whether a single opponent which is much stronger or a band of opponents that are usual persons and tells us that Chaos has no perspective in war that person wages against Order; the current episode can be seen clearly in the trailer to PC game Assassin’s Creed: Origins (Digic Pictures, 2016).

Episode «The executor of the task has no success, and then the doubler accomplishes the task» often reveals itself when a soldier is hit during an attack, and than the next soldier kills an enemy; it can be seen in the My Way (Je-gyu, 2011)—I mean the action «The Hero meets the next wave of enemies» in the scene in which a band of Japanese kamikazes wage the battle against Soviet tanks. This elementary episode shows the success of the Second Servant in keeping Law in mind obviously.

«Some person shows a weakness and then the weak person is murdered»—this episode is concentrated on First Servant’s fear of losing power in the society and the complete sliding down under influence of Chaos after that, and manifests itself when a fugitive has a leg caught by some obstacle among other ways (this action has been observed in the Literary Clichés and the Era of Revolutions (Я., 2023) already.

Let’s take a look on episode «The Enemy avoids the punishment with the cheating and then the Enemy meets the punishment caused by that cheating»—it is related to both the antagonistic characters and can be seen in the Generation War (Kolditz & Kadelbach, 2013). The First Servant makes the rebellion with help of Chaos, and then Chaos fills the mind of that person—this is the meaning of the observed right now episode. It may be added that when we see action «The Enemy releases the Hero from the custody accidentally» (as it can be seen in the Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows (Ritchie, 2011)) we see another one manifestation of the current phenomenon.

«The Hero avoids the danger»—episode which shows how Order fights Servant 1’s rebellion and can be seen often when the protagonist avoids a hard punch (a wall is crushed, not protagonist’s head) during a fighting, makes a running while the antagonist makes a shooting and so on.

Episode «The Hero releases himself/herself» tells about Servant 2’s overcoming lure of illicit pleasures offered by Chaos during Servant 1’s rebellion; it can be seen in action «The Hero makes extraction of a bullet (arrow, sword and so on) from his/her own body.»

Action «The Hero makes breaking of an obstacle with his/her own body» (It can be seen in fictions mostly, like in the I, Robot) is one of manifestations of episode «The Hero defeats the Enemy with Enemy’s own weapon» which has been observed in the Literary Clichés and the Era of Revolutions (Я., 2023) as well.

Now, I want to tell about two episodes which are related with action «The Lord makes a testing of the servants»—they are quite rare and show the evolution of society as testing of loyalty to Law when most of actions and episodes are concentrated on the overcoming of the consequences of Servant 1’s rebellion against Order in the same time (we see manifestation of dualism currently). So, episode «An unfaithful servant makes a trying to kill the Master with a weapon and then meets absence of rounds,» as it is well-shown in the Red Sun (Young, 1971)—it highlights a process of illegal owning the power in the society the First Servant does. Next, «The Hero sees a bait and then he/she does not go to a trap,» like in the Death Race (Anderson, 2008)—episode that is focused on complete Servant 2’s loyalty to Law.

Conclusion

I think, we need to compare the actions which are placed in myths of people who are the hunters-gatherers and the actions we are used to in order to investigate whether the theory of literary clichés presented in the Literary Clichés and the Era of Revolutions was put in human consciousness much earlier than beginning of the civilization. Next, we have to create a list of actual actions (with mentioning families of actions) and episodes.

References

Anderson, P. W. S. (Director). (2008). Death Race [Film]. Relativity Media; Impact Pictures; Cruise/Wagner Productions.

Digic Pictures. (2017, November 28). Assassin’s Creed Origins Cinematic Trailer [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/cK4iAjzAoas.

Je-gyu, K. (Director). (2011). My way [Film]. Directors; SK Planet; CJ Entertainment.

Kolditz, S. (Writer), & Kadelbach, P. (Director). (2013, March 18). Generation War (Season 1, Episode 2) [TV series episode]. In B. Benedict, N. Hofmann, & J. Schuster (Executive Producers), A Different War. Teamworx.

Prochaska, A. (Director). (2014). The Dark Valley [Film]. X-Filme Creative Pool; Allegro Film; SanFilm Produktion; Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; Österreichischer Rundfunk.

Proyas, A. (Director). (2004). I, Robot [Film]. Davis Entertainment; Laurence Mark Productions; Overbrook Films; Mediastream IV.

Ritchie, G. (Director). (2011). Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows [Film]. Village Roadshow Pictures; Silver Pictures; Wigram Productions.

Young, T. (Director). (1971). Red Sun [Film]. Les Films Corona; Oceania Produzioni; Internazionali Cinematografiche; Producciones Balcázar S.A..

Я., С. (2023). Literary Clichés and the Era of Revolutions [preprint]. Orvium Community.

Yaremko, S. (2023). One of the Way the Functions of Dramatis Personae Discovered by Vladimir Propp to be Interpreted [preprint]. Orvium Community.