Motif
Introduced| English | Meaning |
|---|---|
| A motif/ə məʊˈtiːf/ | A unified pattern of recurring objects or images used to emphasize a significant idea in large parts of or throughout a text. |
Repetition alone is not enough
- A motif 母题 is a unified pattern of recurring objects or images used to emphasize a significant idea in large parts of or throughout a text.
- Four conditions, all doing work: unified, recurring, emphasizing a significant idea, across large parts of the text.
- A repeated image that fails any one of them is a repetition, not a motif.
One red scarf is an accessory; the fifth red scarf may be asking you to notice a pattern.
Select all the conditions the CED places on a motif.
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It must also run across large parts of or throughout the text.
Unified is the condition students skip
- Unified means the recurrences belong to one pattern, not merely to one word.
- Keys, locks, a shut door and a lost latch form a unified pattern; keys appearing in three unrelated senses do not.
- So show the join, exactly as with imagery in unit 5.
From detail to motif to symbol: a symbolic reading needs a returning detail and the text to support it
What distinguishes a motif from a symbol is...
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A symbol can be one object in one scene.
Scale distinguishes a motif from a symbol
- A symbol can be one object in one scene; a motif must run through large parts of or throughout the text.
- So evidence for a motif has to be spread, and three widely separated instances usually suffice.
- Two adjacent mentions are a repetition; two hundred pages apart they are a pattern.
Watch repetition build a symbol
Nothing is a symbol on its first appearance — quote the recurrences.
"Unified" means the recurrences belong to one ____, not merely to one word.
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So show the join, exactly as with imagery.
A repeated object is not automatically a motif. The CED requires the pattern to be unified, to recur across large parts of or throughout the text, and to emphasize a significant idea. A word appearing three times in one chapter meets none of the three.
"The motif of keys" is a complete motif analysis.
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The CED requires the pattern to emphasize a significant idea — name it.
Name the significant idea
- The CED requires the pattern to emphasize a significant idea — so an unnamed idea means an unfinished analysis.
- The motif of keys stops at the pattern; the motif of keys emphasises who has the right to enter names the idea.
- The idea, not the object, is what the essay is about.
Put the motif pass in order.
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The last step is what the CED's definition actually requires.
A motif pass
- List the recurrences and check they are spread across large parts of the text.
- Show what unifies them into one pattern.
- Then name the significant idea the pattern emphasises.
Keys in chapter two, a lock changed in chapter fourteen, a door left open at the end. Unified: all three are about access. Spread: across the whole book. Significant idea: who has the right to enter this family — which is the question the plot never asks aloud.
A motif is a unified pattern of recurring objects or images used to emphasize a significant idea in large parts of or throughout a text. Unified (show the join) and spread (large parts) are the conditions students skip — and the analysis must name the significant idea, not just the pattern.