- A film that I recently watched in which the narrative included a plot and discourse as introduced by Jonathan Culler in Chapter 6 of “Narrative” is Parasite by Bong Joon-Ho. The plot of Parasite circles around two families of different social classes. The Kims are a family of four that live in a dark and grungy basement who get entangled with a family of excessive wealth when the son of the Kim family Ki-Woo gets an opportunity to tutor the daughter of the wealthy Park family. The Kim family takes this window of opportunity to get the entire family working for the wealthy Park family for their own advantage. The naive Park family hires the father as the driver, mother as the housekeeper and daughter as the sons English tutor. The entire Kim family swiftly entwined themselves into the Park family to live off their wealth, enormous mansion and lavish amenities. However, things go awry for the Kim family as their plan of new-found fortune gets interrupted as it turns out they weren’t the only con-artists leeching off the Park families wealth. The narrative of the movie completely changes from this point on. The plot of the movie goes through a change from a lighthearted comedy following a family of con-artists into a plot of a suspenseful, creepy thriller that reveals the monsters people will turn into in order to leech off others success and fortune.
- Culler discusses narrative in “What Stories do” as giving pleasure to its audience. Culler discusses narrative as almost a craving that audiences get because it gives a surge of desire for its audience to want to uncover the truth of the narrative. Culler suggests that narratives place within us the internalization of social norms which lead us to believe that scenarios of heterosexual desire, love and youthful illusions are foundations of our true identity. However, Culler questions that fictional narratives may have a misleading effect to its audience. He questions if narratives are a source of knowledge or illusion. Culler says we do not know the answer to if narratives are a source of knowledge or illusion and I agree. I believe that narratives pose a false sense of expectations in reality for many of us. We tend to romanticize many parts of our lives that I believe may stem from the exposure to fictional narratives as we grow up. However, I also believe that as humans we are given the abilities to distinguish ideas to reality.
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