"Propp’s Morphology Of The Folktale": Eastern And Western Folklore

The basic objective of this research is to elucidate the structural variances between Eastern and Western folklore, and how it plays an active role in widening the understanding of the structure of Western as well as Eastern folklore. This will be done by analyzing the tales from Arabian Nights, and validating whether the functions identified by Propp are universal in nature or not? The research shall prove that although Propp’s theory is widely known to be universal in nature, yet it does not conform to the structure of the Eastern folktales, hence a ground breaking theory regarding the morphology of the Eastern folktale would also be introduced, which would identify a sequential order of narrative functions/elements which usually occur within the Eastern folktales.

Oral traditions are imperative in reviving the information about history, heroic epics, and other myths that has been and would be passed down from one generation to another. The main objective of oral traditions is to keep the cultural norms and values of a particular culture alive. Oral traditions are often engulfed with historical tales, legendary stories of heroes, mythological tales, and other super natural elements. Proppian Morphology of the Folktale has widened our understanding of the narrative structure being followed by the Russian folk tales. The narrative structure is based on a synchronized/systematic order of thirty one functions. The synchronized order begins after the initialization of the story, which is begun with the absence of either the hero or someone the hero must strive to rescue later. The absentation is followed by a warning that the hero shouldn’t ignore or else there would be harmful circumstances.

However that warning is somehow violated, intentionally or unintentionally, paving way for the entry of the villain into the story. The villain then struggles and successes to acquire information that is necessary for him to fulfill his evil plans. The villain resorts to deception, disguise or ransom in order to ward off the obstacles in his way. The hero willingly on unwillingly demonstrates complicity, giving the villain a chance to cause harm to the hero and the people around him. The revelation then dawns upon the hero, making hum fully aware of the evilness of the villain, allowing him to come up with a counteraction strategy for the resolution of the issues, which further results in an adventurous departure of the hero for a journey to ward off the evil.

On his journey, the hero is helped by a magical agent, often known as a donor, to which the hero gives sound acceptance. With the help of the magical agent, the hero is transported to an often pertinent location, usually closer to the villain’s hub. The plot takes the form of a direct conflict between the good and the evil, often ending up in scarring the hero’s face or his body. After the victory of the hero, the evilness begins to ward off and the hero departs. However, the struggle of the hero doesn’t stop here, as he is captured by any evil agent belonging to the villain, resulting in him being captured at an abandoned place. The absence of the real hero gives a chance to the villain to sabotage the physical appearance of the hero. However, the real hero carries out a difficult task, in order to free himself from the shackles of the villain. The hero is given due recognition for his wisdom, and the villain is exposed and punished. The hero also goes through some sort of a transfiguration in the form of attaining some magical powers. The plot usually ends in the hero marrying the heroine/princess belonging to a throne where the entire narrative is set up.

Vladimir Propp’s morphology of the folktale is considered to be a universal structure of the folktales. However the tales from The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang deviates from Proppian morphology of the folktale, paving the way of devising a ground breaking theory based upon the study of the morphology of the eastern folktales particularly. The morphology of the eastern folktale would devise a sequential order of elements/functions which not only contradict the Proppian morphology but also formulates the narrative structure of the Eastern folktales.

The aim of this research is to prove that the eastern folklore deviates from the Proppian morphology, which is applicable to the western folklore, and considered to be a universal narrative structure of the folktales. It would be done by applying the Proppian morphology on the Eastern folklore and devising a breakthrough morphology of the eastern folklore.

Through the “The Motif Index and the Tale Type Index: A Critique” a journal of folklore research by Alan Dundes, we come to know that the origin of Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale was a form of a criticism of the Aarne Thompson’s Motif-Index System, which stated that the common elements in a narrative structure of a tale must be considered “motifs” which should be categorized under one “index”. This “tale type index” was not appreciated by the formalist Propp, as according to him the Motif-Index System ignored the functions of motifs in a narrative structure. He further added that through this “macro-level” system similar tales wouldn’t be classified together if their motifs aren’t similar. Similarly, tales with widely divergent plots could be classified under one index if they used the same motifs. He also highlighted the fact that through the Aarne Thompson system, if would be difficult to classify between, “animal tales” and “fantastic tales”, as both incorporate the elements of each other. Therefore, Propp considered the Aarne Thompson system inefficient as it lacked consistency in terms of categories and types of tales, and in order to address the shortcomings of the Aarne Thompson’s system, he published his response in the form of a criticism as Morphology of the folktale. In The Morphology of the Folktale, Propp instead of focusing upon the tale types and indexing, focused upon the construction of the narrative structure through which tales can be classified under a genre.

In the second edition and a new introduction of Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale by Alan Dundes, he says about Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale that "Morphology will in all probability be regarded by future generations as one of the major theoretical breakthroughs in the field of folklore in the twentieth century." In a position paper “Structure and Form: Reflection on a Work by Vladimir Propp" by a French structuralist and a critic Levi-Strauss Claude, Propp faced criticism with respect to the approach that he implied in his morphology of the folktale. He criticized pointed out that Propp warded off the “the oral nature of the folk take, and failed to consider the importance of tone, mood, language and characters in comparing and contrasting various folk tales.” He further argued Propp’s scheme and the chronological order that he followed could be reduced to a fewer steps, as not all “wonder tales” incorporate the exact chronological order, or all the functions defined by Propp. Propp responded to this criticism in the Italian edition of the Morphology of the Folktales, with a rebuttal by writing, “Lévi-Strauss showed no interest in empirical investigation of my work.” He further responded that “each function in his morphology had a specific reason and a purpose for them being in a chronological order”, with respect to the narrative structure of the folklores. He added that “In the study of composition that is, of the sequence of functions, reduction of the binary elements to a single one will not reveal the laws that govern the development of the plot. A logical arrangement of functions is detrimental to our search”.

In his essay, “Structure and Form: Reflection on a Work by Vladimir Propp”, which originally appeared as Chapter XIII of Anthropologie structural (1958), Claude Lévi-Strauss attempts to highlight that that Propp somewhat plagiarized his idea of structuralizing the narrative elements of a folktale. As Lévi-Strauss stated: “The most striking aspect of Propp’s work is the power with which it anticipates further developments”. He further tries to assert that there is strife between formalism and structuralism. He in his essay suggests that “Instead of Propp’s chronological order of functions, another scheme should be adopted, which would present a structural model defined as the group of transformations of a smaller number of elements.”

The scheme that Strauss wanted to employ is defined by him in his essay as, “the scheme would appear as a matrix with two, three, or four dimensions”, and “its system of operations would be closer to Boolean algebra” (183).Propp’s rebuttal of nullified Strauss’s “binary” scheme and supported his morphology as a reply in Italian edition of morphology of folktake, published in 1966. He suggested that “Binary schemes make a complete whole on logical levels, but the study of the chronological composition is imperative and lack of it would be “misleading”. He further added that “According to Lévi-Strauss, binary functions are complementary and should be reduced to one whole, which may be true on a logical plane. But for the study of composition such mechanical associations are unsuitable and misleading.”

Propp also defended his idea of having a chronological order of the narrative elements, and not reducing them in number. In his morphology of the folktale, he states: “Therefore in the study of composition, that is, of the sequence of functions, reduction of the binary elements to a single one will not reveal the laws that govern the development of the plot. A logical arrangement of functions is detrimental to our search”. Many critics appreciated or criticized the approaches of both Propp and Strauss. One of them was Alan Dundes who drew a stark distinction between the approaches of both the folklorists. According to Dundes, “Propp focuses on the syntagmatic aspects of structure, while Strauss is concerned with paradigmatic structuralism”.

Times literary supplement adds up on the Propp-Strauss debate by quoting, "It was primarily Claude Lévi-Strauss who made Propp's book popular outside the small circle of Western Slavicists: he immediately recognized the importance of Propp's methodology not only for the study of the fairy-tale, but generally for the study of narrative folklore.”

Vladimir Propp’s was an internationally famous and renowned folklorist, and his fame is majorly associated with his break through structural analysis of Russian folklore, the morphology of the folktale, which was later considered to be the universal narrative structure of the folktales. His ground breaking theory influenced some renowned folklorists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes. His morphology has been translated into English, Italian, Polish, French, Romanian, Spanish, and German from 1958-1975. Although, a lot has been studied and done on structuralism of the folktales, still the morphology of the eastern folktales is yet to be explored, despite it being the recipient of folktales even before they came to west.