Vladimir Propp

Biography

Vladimir Propp was born on April 17, 1895 in St. Petersburg to a German family. He attended St. Petersburg University (1913–1918) majoring in Russian and German philosophy. Upon graduation he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and then became a college teacher of German.

His Morphology of the Folktale was published in Russian in 1928. Although it represented a breakthrough in both folkloristics and morphology and influenced Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes, it was generally unnoticed in the West until it was translated in the 1950s. His character types are used in media education and can be applied to almost any story, be it in literature, theatre, film, television series, games, etc.

In 1932, Propp became a member of Leningrad University (formerly St. Petersburg University) faculty. After 1938, he shifted the focus of his research from linguistics to folklore. He chaired the Department of Folklore until it became part of the Department of Russian Literature. Propp remained a faculty member until his death in 1970.

Theory:
believes that fairy tales are constructed using certain plot elements such as: pursuit, punishment etc... which consistently occur in a uniform sequence after studying 100 fairy tales he produced 31 generic functions.
He also believed that there are character types in media, such as villain, dispatcher (sends the hero), helper, princess/prize,  her father, donor, hero, false hero which appear in any story based media, e.g. film, tv series, video game, song, literature...

Villain: Darth Vader
Princess/prize: Leia
Hero: Luke Skywalker
Donor/ dispatcher: Obi wan.
False hero: Han Solo.