The rhythms of narrative tension and its cultural satisfaction
Frank Miller’s 300
Critics reading narratives as progressions, that’s to say, from beginning to end, prefer to see meaning emerge as a result of the
interaction between different elements in the narrative, rather than of the imposition of a priori cultural schemata. This
article, however, argues for the possibility of using a priori cultural schemata, as long as these pass through the filters
established by theories of narrative progression. To show how this is done, I will interpret Frank Miller’s comic
300 by letting a tool of cultural-semantic analysis interact with narrative tension in the form of suspense,
curiosity, and surprise. I argue that the back and forth between narrative tension and the tool accounts not only for the content
of the comic but also for its basic narrative rhythm.
Article outline
- 1.Theoretical preliminaries
- 2.Bridging the gap between semantics and cultural schemata
- 2.1A tool which originates in modal logic
- 2.2From semantics towards culture
- 3.Analyzing 300
- 3.1Prolegomena
- 3.2Curiosity 1 to 3
- 3.3Suspense 1 to 5
- 3.4Surprise
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
-
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