The Modality of Proppian “False Hero”: Neither a Hero Nor a Villain in (Folk) Narratives and Real Life

Abstract

Being the contemporary of Roland Barthes and also prominent scholar in French Semiotics, and also known for founding the Parisian School of Semiotics, Algirdas Julien Greimas, with his formal trainings in structural linguistics shaped the theory of signification by adding plastic semiotics. Indeed, his masterly contributions that had given a new direction in the study of narratives include the famous semiotics square, actantial model, concepts of isotopy, narrative programme and the semiotics of the natural world. However, the actantial model developed by Greimas in 1966 provided an analytical tool for studying various actions carried out by different actors (“actants”) in a real or fictional story. Although developed from the suggestion given by Vladimir Propp that his [Propp’s] seven dramatis personae such as ‘villain’, ‘donor’, ‘helper’, ‘princess/sought-for-person’, ‘dispatcher’, ‘hero’, and ‘false hero’ could be reduced further, Greimas proposed the actantial narrative schema with six actants that manifest their movements of relationship along the line founded on knowledge and power. However, the ‘false hero’ as one of the dramatis personae could be seen as important as, and as similar to, others in the narrative structure, its modality is quite interesting, and it tends to warrant an academic discussion to contemplate its morphology. Taking few examples from folktales and drawing insights from the Greimasian actantial model, this study presents the semiotic account of the ‘false hero’ to highlight the fact that the ‘false hero’ occupies a significant place not only within the real and fictional stories but also in daily life, by explaining the veridictory modality structure of truth and falseness. By drawing examples from folktales, this article comprehends the nature of the ‘false hero’, who is neither a hero nor a villain, for providing a grammatical framework that facilitates our smooth handling of the notion that is indispensably occupying our everyday life. Therefore, the significance of this paper is that it is lessening our efforts to decipher the nature of different characters in different forms of narratives and their presentations in different media.