ABSTRACT
Propp's ground breaking analysis of the 'functions' performed by characters in Russian *folktales furnished a precedent for this structuralist conception of actants (scc FUNCTION (PROPP)). Construing the function as 'an act of character, defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action' (1968 [1928]: 21), Propp argued that many seemingly diverse functions join together to create a few, typifiable 'spheres of action'. He developed a typology of seven general roles (the villain, the donor, the helper, the sought-for-person and her father, the dispatcher, the *hero, and the false hero) that correspond to the ways in which characters can participate in the plot structures found in the *genre of the folktale (Propp 1968 [1928]: 79-80).
