What Is Mieke Bal's Narrative Theory

For the purpose of this essay, I will be speaking about Mieke Bal’s theory of narratology and applying the theory to a piece of narrative culture. The piece I've chosen to speak about is the movie ‘Se7en’. It was produced in 1995 , it is filmed in an unnamed american city and director of the movie is David Fincher. I have chosen to focus on the final scene and the sequence in which the narrative is told. Bal’s theory helps to decipher, understand and evaluate narratives. Bal breaks narrative down into three main parts, text, story and fabula. Text being the speaker, story being the character and fabula the actor. Narratology is not the reading and interpretation of the text but an attempt to read the story and take it as a concept.The theory …show more content…
‘Se7en’ is not only restricted but omniscient narration too. We see the narration told from more than one protagonist, we see it unfold from detective Mills and detective Somerset, when they discover the information we then receive it. In the final scene with the ‘box’ we see here restrictive narration. Somerset opens the box and jumps back, the viewer does not know exactly whats in the box, we can see him realising something. The music begins to get louder and this is a narrative devise which allows the audience to realise something is about to take place. Somerset then states ‘ stay away, John Doe has the upper hand’ he has now let us in on a piece of information he has learned yet we still don't know what is in the box, but we know that it isn't good if the antagonist has the upper hand so this therefore helps to heighten suspense and tension. The camera pans back to Mills and Doe, now we get to here the plot unfold from the point of view of the antagonist. Doe tells Mills how he has murdered his wife and we find out what is in the box, Tracy’s ‘pretty head’. This then triggers the action, detective Mills shoots the antagonist in the