Analysis of Dear John- Mr Bush

Dear John

‘Dear John’ directed by Lasse Hallstorm and its genre is drama, romantic. The basic storyline is about a young soldier home on leave, and Savannah Curtis, the idealistic college student he falls in love with her during her spring break. Over the next seven years, the couple are separated by john’s increasingly dangerous job. While meeting only intermittently, they stay in touch by sending a continuous stream of love letters overseas. However, they eventually trigger fateful consequences. The protagonists are Channing Tatum for plays John Tyree and Amanda Seyfried who plays Savannah Curtis.

Using Vladimir Propp character theory, which are roles of:  the villain: creates a complication in the narrative. The Donor; gives the hero something that will help in resolution. The Helper; helps the hero in restoring the resolution. The Princess: saved by the hero. The Dispatcher: sends the hero on a task. The Hero: Central protagonist, save the day and restore the equilibrium and finally the false hero: rare character that appears to be good but is revealed to have been bad all along.

‘Dear John’ includes the princess (savannah), the hero (john). However, the story has a twist which does result the hero restoring the equilibrium.  The Dispatcher could be seen as Johns Dad. The Donor/ false hero could be seen as Henry Thomas (Tim Wheddon). The reason he is the false hero is because he ends up taking the hero at the end of the movie but he pretends to be a close family friend being her ‘father figure’.

The narrative pattern is in a linear pattern, which is a film that goes in the order starting with the beginning, middle and end.

Using Tzetan Todorov who believes in the three stages in a move, the equilibrium: the harmony in the story, the disequilibrium: the unfortunate event that ruins the harmony and the new equilibrium, which is the resort of the equilibrium.

 In ‘Dear John’, the equilibrium is when John and Savannah meet during her spring break, when they become a couple and the continuous love letters been sent when john goes away. The disequilibrium is when savannah stops writing letters to him and her last letter after two month is how she had moved on and got engaged. When he receives this letter, he burns all the letters and everything that she gave him. This shows an enigma code because we as the audience are seeing things in the same light as John; it is ambiguous to us as well. She only marries Tim because his son Alan needs a mother figure, as Tim was ill and was going to die but she truly loved john. Also, John’s dad had passed away as well. The new equilibrium is that Savannah and John become close friends again and the relationship starts to build again.

To conclude, narrative and narrative patterns are informant to the audience. When a non-linear pattern is involved it allows the audience to create their own story of what they believe is going to happen and connect with what may happen later on in the text. Secondly, a multi-strand narrative is involved it would not weary the audience because there are more than one story happening. This is usually used in soaps. Narrative, overall, helps construct the story of the text which gives the audience a guidance on the story being told or what is happening next.