Narrative Analysis Frameworks
Greimas’s Actantial Model
A. J. Greimas’s actantial model, developed in Sémantique structurale (1966), describes six roles in an action. It asks who pursues what, for whose benefit, and with what assistance or resistance.
An actant is a role in a chosen action. People, groups, objects or abstract forces can fill roles; one actor can occupy several roles.
The six actants
Assign roles relative to the action and viewpoint being analysed.
| Reference | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Subject | The actor pursuing a goal or desired state. |
| Object | The thing, value or state sought by the subject. |
| Sender | What prompts or authorises the pursuit. |
| Receiver | Who or what benefits from its fulfilment. |
| Helper | What assists the subject’s pursuit. |
| Opponent | What obstructs that pursuit. |
Three relationships
The roles form three paired axes.
| Reference | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Subject ↔ Object | Desire: the relation between the pursuing subject and the goal. |
| Sender ↔ Receiver | Transmission: the source and beneficiary of the undertaking. |
| Helper ↔ Opponent | Power: the forces that support or resist it. |
An illustrative reading
Editorial example, invented for this reference: a villager seeks water for a drought-stricken community.
| Reference | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Possible assignments | Subject: villager; object: restored water supply; sender: communal need; receiver: village; helper: a guide; opponent: a blocked spring. Another episode or viewpoint may produce another model. |
Using this reference
Choose an episode or goal before assigning roles. Cite the passage for each assignment and allow more than one defensible reading.
Compare this with Propp’s sequence of actions: actants describe relationships, so they need not correspond one-to-one with Propp’s seven spheres of action.
Each heading has a stable link for citation and future cross-referencing. Narrative associations will follow later analysis.
Sources and further reading
Greimas, A. J. Sémantique structurale: recherche de méthode. Paris: Larousse, 1966. English translation: Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method. University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
- Louis Hébert, Signo: explanation of the actantial model
- University of Geneva: six actantial functions and their relationships
- University of New Brunswick: Structural Semantics bibliographic record
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