A Object Concept or Symbol in Literature That Reappers Again and Again

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Motif Definition

What is a motif? Here's a quick and elementary definition:

A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a piece of work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, assistance develop the cardinal themes of a volume or play. For example, one of the central themes in Romeo and Juliet is that beloved is a paradox containing many contradictions. Equally part of developing this theme, Shakespeare describes the experience of love by pairing contradictory, reverse symbols side by side to each other throughout the play, such as night and twenty-four hour period, moon and sun, crows and swans. All of these paired symbols fall into a broader pattern of "dark vs. light," and that broader pattern is called a motif. The motif (in this case "darkness and light") reinforces the theme: that love is paradox.

Some additional central details about motifs:

Because motifs are and then constructive in communicating and emphasizing the main themes of a piece of work, they're common in political speeches as well equally in literature.
There are actually two working definitions of motif: one that defines motif as a special kind of symbol, and one that draws a greater distinction between the two terms. Nosotros'll explore both definitions below.
You may take heard the word "motif" used to describe repeating patterns outside the realm of literature. In music, for case, a motif is a brusque serial of notes that repeats throughout a song or rail. In art, a motif is a design or pattern that repeats in dissimilar parts of an artwork, or in unlike works by the same creative person. While these additional meanings of motif are useful to know, motifs in literature function differently and have a slightly more than specific meaning.

Motif Pronunciation

Here's how to pronounce motif: moh-teef

Motifs in Depth

In social club to empathize motifs in more than depth, it's helpful to have a strong grasp of a few other literary terms related to motif. We encompass each of these in depth on their own respective pages, but beneath is a quick overview to help brand understanding motif easier.

A theme is an abstract and universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature. Information technology's what the writer is trying to say about life and human being experience in general, across the scope of what happens in a particular story. Motifs, while they often reinforce themes, are different in the sense that they are both more concrete and more specific to the work in which they appear than themes.
A symbol is anything that represents another thing. Nosotros encounter symbols constantly in our every day life: a blood-red light is a symbol for stop, a dove is a symbol for peace, a centre is a symbol for love.
- A literary symbol is often a tangible thing—an object, person, place, or action—that represents something intangible, like a complex concept or emotion. For instance, in Robert Frost'south The Road Non Taken, the "two roads [diverging] in a xanthous wood" are symbols for two different life paths. In Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, the raven that taps on the narrator'south door as he mourns his lost love symbolizes the certitude of her decease.

Identifying Motifs

The master themes of a work are rarely expressed directly by a writer (for instance, Shakespeare doesn't tell his audition direct "this play is about the contradictory nature of beloved"). Rather, writers reveal the chief themes of their work indirectly, through different elements of the narrative such equally plot developments and imagery. When readers recognize a pattern in the work they're reading—specifically, a blueprint that connects some or all of the dissimilar images or plot developments that assistance express a detail theme in the work—that overall pattern is the motif. Hither'southward a more physical case:

If a story centers effectually someone's sudden and unexplained death, i of the master themes might be that death is ever-present. This theme might, in turn, be supported by a motif of harmless things becoming fatal: for instance, perchance the primary grapheme develops an irrational fear of choking while drinking water, or contracting disease from a musquito bite.

This relationship between themes, motifs, and symbols (or images) can exist visualized with different symbols making up a motif, and unlike motifs supporting an overarching theme, similar then:

Motif vs. Theme

Information technology can be difficult, at times, to clearly distinguish themes from the motifs that limited them. Here are some of the fundamental differences between themes and motifs:

The motif is much more concrete than the abstruse theme: it consists of specific images and symbols that the reader can visualize.
Motifs also tend to be specific to the work in which they appear, whereas themes appear again and once more in different works by writers from unlike eras.
- For example, at that place are thousands of works that explore the theme of love being contradictory. But while you may encounter other books that examine the contradictory nature of love every bit the theme, you're unlikely to notice multiples books that use the same motif or motifs and the aforementioned repetitive pattern of symbols to do and so.

To render to the Romeo and Juliet example, Shakespeare's theme (that "dearest is contradictory") is an abstruse idea that finds expression in different means throughout the story, and it'due south full general plenty that most people will be able to relate information technology to their own life and experiences. By contrast, the motif of darkness and light is non a purely abstruse concept, and it'due south besides not necessarily every bit broadly applicable to the lives of readers equally a theme generally is.

Motif vs. Symbol

There are two competing ways of thinking about the human relationship betwixt symbols and motifs:

Some people remember that a motif is just a symbol that repeats throughout a text. For instance, if Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven" were a longer work in which the raven disappears and reappears several times, these people would contend that the raven (which symbolizes death) would then be a motif.
Withal, others think that there's a bigger divergence between motifs and symbols, and believe that symbols are just one building block of motifs, which are bigger, more overarching patterns that direct reinforce themes. These people would say that even if the raven were to disappear and reappear throughout "The Raven," it's still just a symbol.
- These people might argue that the symbol of the raven—which taps on the narrator'south door and perches higher up the entry way to his house, and generally acts as a messenger from some other world—is part of a larger motif in poem of thresholds and borders which helps explore the themes of losing bear on with reality and death.

In this entry, we've chosen to cover this 2nd definition of motif—the one that separates motifs from symbols in the bureaucracy of literary devices. Even so, many reputable sources refer to motif as a kind of symbol. What yous should know is that at that place are competing definitions of motif, and whether a motif is a type of symbol depends on the definition you're using.

Motif Examples

While motifs oftentimes do consist of literary symbols similar the ones we depict above—the raven that stands for death, or the path that represents a manner of life—the elements that make up motifs are not ever things. In the examples below, you'll see cases in which the symbolic elements of a motif are sometimes things, sometimes actions, and sometimes events and places.

Motif in Roberto Bolaño'southward 2666

One theme of Roberto Bolaño's novel 2666 is that art always escapes critics' efforts to empathise information technology. Bolaño explores this theme through the motif of the futile search. Throughout the novel, dissimilar characters search for things unsuccessfully:

The starting time, overarching search is the search for a reclusive writer, Benno von Arcimboldi, who has neither published new writing nor appeared in public for decades. Three academics who accept all made careers out of studying Arcimboldi lead the search, withal never find him.
The second search is a criminal investigation into the rape and murder of hundreds of young women in the city of Santa Teresa, Mexico. This search is led by the metropolis'southward best police detectives, who believe a series killer is responsible. Even though he has a distinctive signature and doesn't even try to hibernate the bodies of his victims, the killer is never plant.
The third search is a romantic quest undertaken past a madwoman, for a poet she slept with as a immature woman. When she finds him in an insane asylum, not but does he not recognize her, but he's but interested in men.

Each of the novel's three searches proves to be fruitless, creating a broader pattern (the motif) of futile searching, which in turn supports the book's broader thematic argument that art, despite the all-time efforts of critics, has a way of resisting resolution or anticipation.

Motif in F. Scott Fitzgerald'due south The Swell Gatsby

One theme in Fitzgerald'due south The Cracking Gatsby is that the American dream is empty and unattainable. The book centers around the graphic symbol Jay Gatsby, who claws his way into high lodge to win the amore of the wealthy but frivolous Daisy Buchanan, and ultimately dies because of Daisy'due south selfish, reckless behavior. Fitzgerald uses the motif of the color green to explore the empty promise of the American Dream by repeatedly associating the color with ideas of success, appetite, and wealth:

Gatsby buys a mansion on the Long Island Sound, across the water from Daisy's estate, and each night stares longingly at the green low-cal that shines from the end of Daisy's dock. The green light is a symbol that appears multiple times in the novel—during the early on stages of Gatsby's longing for Daisy, during his pursuit of her, and afterwards he dies after she abandons him. The dark-green light symbolizes Gatsby's longing for Daisy and his dream that he can recreate his past dear with her, but it besides plays into the broader motif of the color dark-green.
In Chapter half-dozen, Daisy tells Nick that she'll be handing out green cards at Gatsby's party, and informs him that he can nowadays her with one of these green cards if he wants to osculation her. So the cards themselves symbolize the very thing Gatsby desires (i.e., Daisy's amore).
In Chapter vii, the car crash that leads to Gatsby'southward ruin, definitively destroying his dream of ever being with Daisy, involves a green machine.
In Affiliate 9, Gatsby's friend Nick Caraway stares at the coastline and wonders how the offset settlers to America must have felt staring out at the "green chest of the new earth."

In every instance in which the color green appears in the book, it is closely associated with a goal that is forever receding into the distance (whether information technology's the idea of a "New World," true beloved, success, or happiness). "Greenness" itself therefore becomes a motif which reinforces the broader theme of the unattainability of the American dream.

Motif in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe's Things Falls Apart is virtually an Igbo warrior named Okonkwo, whose commitment to his culture's traditions brings him honor, only likewise eventually leads to his downfall. In the novel, Achebe develops the theme that blindly following tradition can take catastrophic consequences through the specific motif of sacrifice.

Throughout the novel, Okonkwo and other members of the community routinely perform symbolic rituals of sacrifice in the name of tradition, offering upwards animals, currency, and other valuables.
Throughout the novel, women who give birth to twins abandon their own babies in the forest. This tradition, which the association enforces out of a belief that twins are evil, alienates many members of the clan who afterwards convert to Christianity.
In Chapter 7, Okonkwo kills his adopted son, whom he loves deeply, in accordance with his association's laws, permanently scarring his other son, Nwoye, who afterwards joins the white Christian missionaries and colonialists.

Finally, Okonkwo loses the volition to live and commits suicide, devastated by having witnessed the white colonialists' destruction of his own community's aboriginal traditions (including acts of sacrifice such as those described higher up). Okonkwo's disability to live without these traditions—all of which together make upward the motif of sacrifice—supports the volume'south broader thematic statement: that without the power to conform and alter, the desire to preserve tradition can become fatal.

Why Do Writers Use Motifs?

Writers incorporate motifs in their work for a number of reasons:

They help writers organize symbols, plot developments, and imagery into broader patterns that emphasize the primary themes of the work.
They give a work a sense of structure and continuity past creating patterns that recur throughout the work.
They tin can aid writers weave together dissimilar and seemingly unrelated parts of a narrative.
They enable writers to subtly recapitulate or remind the reader of certain ideas throughout a text using vivid and often memorable imagery.

Other Helpful Motif Resource

The Wikipedia Page on Motif: A concise explanation of motif.
The Dictionary Definition of Motif: A basic definition of the term, with a bit on the etymology: the word motif comes from the French give-and-take for "dominant idea or theme."
Theme vs. Motif: A helpful article that breaks downwards the difference between these two terms.

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Source: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/motif