Days Of Our Lives: Narrative Enigmas

Narrative enigmas are a vital part of storytelling, especially for the television serial. The story must go on, and the best way to make viewers keep watching is by bringing up questions that the audience will want answers for. Characters are normally motivated to find answers to the narrative enigmas running through their storylines and others. Generally the actions of characters that are motivated by these narrative enigmas will help move the story along in a sort of cause-effect chain. If we examine the narrative enigmas of a long running storyline from a serial television program, than we can find out how they help move the story along and raise even more questions that will eventually be answered (or not in some occasions). The example we will be examining comes from a storyline that lasted months on Days of Our Lives, that centered around Marlena confronting Kristen about her marriage to John. The first narrative enigma centers around what Marlena knows about Kristen and John’s marriage. For a while the audience is not sure what Marlena knows, but through the use of dialog she eventually answers this question. Marlene tells Kristen that she knows that her baby isn’t either hers or Johns. This reveal opens up a new question, who actually birthed the child, which helps to move the story along. Since Marlena took action and confronted …show more content…
At this point in the storyline Marlena has been on the offensive and is planning on ruining Kristen and John’s relationship, so the audience wonders what will happen next? Well Kristen is able to get Marlena into the wine cellar, where she locks Marlena up and stops her from telling John the truth… for the time being. Kristen took action and is able to stop Marlena from talking to John, but this raises a whole new narrative enigma, how is Marlena going to get out of the secret sound proof room in the wine