Literary Motifs: What is a Motif in Literature?

When a work of literature employs an image or idea in repetition, that image or idea might be a motif. Literary motifs describe noteworthy repetitions whose presence in the work is essential for understanding the work itself.

Sometimes writers decide a work’s motifs in advance. Just as often, however, a work’s motifs are emergent—they happen unconsciously, or else are discovered and refined through revision.

Nonetheless, whether you’re a writer looking to develop a work of literature, or a reader trying to grasp Macbeth, understanding literary motifs will help you understand the literary process as a whole.

First, the essentials: what is a motif in literature?

Literary Motif Definition: What is a Motif?

A motif is simply an important feature of a work of literature that gets repeated across that work. A repeated image, symbol, metaphor, idea, or phrase can all constitute a motif, as that repetition likely impacts the meaning and interpretation of the work.

A motif is simply an important feature of a work of literature that gets repeated across that work.

The idea of a motif transcends literature. Motifs can be found in art, music, film—really, any form of artistic expression. Perhaps you notice a recurring image in a movie, or a recurring sound in a piece of classical music. Those are motifs, and if you pay close attention to them, you’ll notice how they lend structure and complexity to their respective works.

But what defines a literary motif is simply that repetition in language of an image or idea. Once you notice those repetitions, you can start to notice how a motif’s meaning changes over the course of a text, or how the text expands and complicates that motif.

Literary Motif Vs. Leitmotif

Literary motifs are sometimes confused with leitmotifs, but leitmotifs have no relation to literature. A leitmotif is a form of motif specifically found in music: it is a recurring sound or movement in a work of music that corresponds to a character or idea in the piece. In other words, if you hear a leitmotif, it will accompany the same character, theme, or even situation in a musical work, such as an opera. But, leitmotifs are strictly musical, not literary.

Literary Motif Vs. Theme

Motifs often get mistaken for themes, but the two are importantly distinct.

A theme is a central, organizing idea of a piece of literature. A poem or story explores, expands upon, or challenges a theme: it is the “aboutness” of a piece of writing, beyond simple facts about “what happened.” Some examples of themes include family, man versus nature, war, justice, or love.

Motifs are interrelated to themes, but are ultimately unique. A motif advances a theme by being repeated across a piece of literature. Because motifs often explore the same ideas from different angles, a motif expands the thematic possibilities of the work, broadening the work’s scope and insight.

A theme is a central, organizing idea of a piece of literature. A motif advances a theme by being repeated across a piece of literature.

To put things more clearly:

A theme is an abstract idea explored in a piece of literature. Motifs are concrete explorations of those ideas: they embody thematic elements so that the theme can be explored concretely.

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To learn more about theme, read our article here:

https://writers.com/common-themes-in-literature

Literary Motif Vs Symbol

Motifs are also occasionally mistaken for symbols, and for good reason, since both are concrete manifestations of abstract ideas.

A symbol is a concrete image that represents an abstract idea. A heart represents love; scales represent justice; and so on and so forth.

A symbol is just one concrete representation of an idea, but a motif is both the instance and the repetition: it needs to be repeated to be a motif.

A symbol can also be a singular iteration of a motif. Motifs are repeated throughout a work of literature, so if an idea or symbol recurs throughout the work, then that recurrence as a whole is the motif. But the two are distinct in that a symbol is just one concrete representation of an idea, but a motif is both the instance and the repetition: it needs to be repeated to be a motif.

Literary Motif in Poetry

Throughout this article, we describe motifs as being repeated across a work of literature. Is that still true in a work of poetry, which typically has fewer words to contain a lot of repetitions?

Poems don’t need motifs to be effective. But poems can certainly have motifs, particularly long poems or narrative poems in which an image or action recurs throughout the work. For example, in the epic poem The Iliad, Zeus has to decide multiple times between accepting fate (the death of a son) or challenging it, each instance bringing the poem back to ruminations about the nature of fate itself.

Short poems are typically too short to have motifs by way of their concision. It’s not that short poetry is less thematically complex, necessarily, only that a motif spans a work of literature, and its repetitions expand upon the poem’s thematic elements.

Here’s a poem that has repetition, but not motifs:

Poem
By: Langston Hughes

I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began,—
I loved my friend.

The first and last lines are repeated, but we can’t call those repetitions a motif. Yes, the line is thematically essential to the poem, and yes, its repetition carries with it new meaning; but a motif needs to be repeated more than just once to be a motif, and the repeated line isn’t trying to expand the poem’s complexity. Rather, it’s the poem’s simplicity that makes it such an effective piece.

Motif Examples in Literature

Because motifs extend across the totality of a work of literature, we can’t meaningfully comment on every instance of a motif in a novel or play. So, we’ll look at a few motifs in commonly read works of literature—and, in case you haven’t read them, we’ll include links to the work that can be read freely in the public domain.

Literary Motifs in Macbeth by William Shakespeare

You can find the full text at Gutenberg here.

Like many of Shakespeare’s works, Macbeth has a lot of different motifs that play off of and suggest each other. The most prominent ones, and the ones the audience is most likely to remember, are the motifs of blood, light/dark, and sleep.

Blood

The imagery of blood recurs throughout the play: Macbeth hallucinates a blood-smeared dagger, sees a bloody child in the visions of the three witches, and, most saliently, Lady Macbeth cannot wash the imaginary blood off of her hands.

Blood acts primarily, though not exclusively, as a symbol for guilt in the play. As Macbeth becomes obsessed with both accruing and maintaining his power, blood becomes a stark reminder of his own forsaken humanity. It also, arguably, foreshadows his own death: the image of a bloody child is like an image of tainted innocence, of new life and death happening in tandem, much like his own newfound power is quickly deceased.

Light/Dark

While the idea of light representing goodness and dark representing evil is a tad overdone, this motif is employed effectively in Macbeth, as both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth find themselves torn between light and darkness. The play’s sinister events happen primarily in the dark of night, including the murders of King Duncan and Banquo. Moreover, Banquo’s torchlight is extinguished at his murder. Finally, the witches themselves are described as “secret, black, and midnight hags”—though they are, more than anything else, soothsayers of evil.

Despite this descent into darkness, Lady Macbeth, consumed with guilt and paranoia, reaches for candlelight for fear of this evil enveloping both her and Macbeth. Malcolm, moreover, is associated with light and order, and his eventual kingship is foreshadowed when he says “Angels are bright still through the brightest fell.”

Sleep

Sleep, of course, happens in tandem with night/day and light/darkness, but sleep itself is its own motif in the play. Duncan, for example, is murdered in his sleep; when Macbeth hears in his head “Macbeth does murder sleep,” he is not just murdering Duncan, but also what sleep represents: peace of mind and innocence.

It is no wonder, then, that Lady Macbeth sleepwalks: her sleep is not peaceful, as she is no longer innocent, having encouraged Macbeth towards murder. Macbeth, in tandem, has frequent nightmares. Given that the sleep/wake cycle is part of the natural order of things, the disruption of sleep thus occurs with the disruption of the natural order—a disruption further hinted at by the play’s repeating motif of storms, and the play’s eventual return to goodness and order via Malcolm and Macduff.

Literary Motifs in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

You can find the full text at Gutenberg here.

Jane Eyre is a novel steeped in the Gothic literary tradition. As such, many of its motifs are Gothic in nature, and they help tell a story about a woman’s freedom and confidence in a culture that’s repressively patriarchal.

(Caged) Birds

Birds recur throughout the novel as reminders of and aspirations towards freedom. A central plight of Jane Eyre’s is her inability to find freedom in the society she lives in: both her austere childhood and her status as a woman in Victorian England restrain and shackle her.

At times, the bird is described as caged—a somewhat obvious symbol for repressed freedom. Many more times, birds are free, wild creatures, and Jane often shows particular kindness towards them, whether feeding them or observing them or simply reading about them. Her close attention to these symbols of freedom, not coincidentally, occur at times when she is herself struggling against the confines of her own societal cage.

Fire and Ice

Fire and ice—or, more broadly, warmth and coldness—show up frequently as opposing motifs. Jane Eyre is typically the fiery one: warm, passionate, even at times hot-headed. Many of her oppressors, on the other hand, are icy or chilling. Mr. Reed has cold and stony eyes; Mr. Rochester is at times cold towards Jane’s and others’ feelings; the novel itself begins on a cold winter’s day in Jane’s cold, loveless childhood. St. John, later in the novel, is himself associated with snow.

However, the novel is not without warmth. Though the cold tries to trim Jane’s fire, her desire for freedom burns throughout the work. It’s not a coincidence, either, that Bertha tries to burn Mr. Rochester’s house down: her act of arson is the result of a fire constrained and jailed, but never diminished. The novel’s conclusion, of course, ends in warmth: not the brilliance and danger of fire, but the comfort of the hearth, a fire controlled.

Haunting

Gothic novels like Jane Eyre often have a sense of haunting associated with them, both literal and supernatural. Jane herself has many ghosts. The ghost of the Red Room (a motif in its own right) often haunts Jane in her adulthood: the room itself is believed to be haunted, and it also sneaks up in Jane’s memory in moments of emotional intensity.

Moreover, Bertha, Rochester’s secret wife, haunts his mansion both literally and figuratively. Literally, she is the cause of great unrest, causing unexplainable sounds and events within the novel (before her ultimate arson). Figuratively, her presence is a psychological chill on the household, including as something that haunts Mr. Rochester’s present. Bertha is also a kind of Gothic Double, in that she, as a sort of doppelgänger, mirrors Jane’s desire for freedom, and demonstrates what happens when that freedom isn’t won.

Literary Motifs in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

You can find the full text at Gutenberg here.

The Great Gatsby is a richly symbolic work that explores the limits of the American Dream. There are plenty of recurring images and symbols in the novel, each with their own thematic relevance, so this list is certainly not exhaustive. But some of the most salient motifs are that of the green light, eyes, and driving.

The Green Light

The green light on Daisy’s dock is the novel’s poignant symbol for longing and aspiration. Gatsby knows that Daisy is unattainable, yet is unable to detach himself from his desire for her. This image is one of the enduring symbols of the novel, and is perhaps the image it is most known for.

Gatsby’s desire for Daisy is also a desire for the American Dream: if anything, the American Dream is displaced onto Daisy, who becomes a sort of aspirational possession for Gatsby. It’s no coincidence that the light is green, given that green is a color associated with wealth. In fact, other colors in the novel also recur as motifs in The Great Gatsby: gold also appears around Gatsby as reminders of his wealth and superficiality; white suggests Daisy’s seeming innocence and purity (and actual moral bankruptcy); blue, like Gatsby’s blue garden, reminds the reader of the novel’s enduring loneliness.

Eyes

The other prominent image of the novel is eyes, particularly those of Dr. T. J. Eckelburg, whose image shows up on many of the book’s covers. More importantly, Eckelburg’s eyes appear on a billboard in the Valley of Ashes, a desolate area of Long Island whose setting itself represents the moral decay and wealth inequality of America. Eckelburg’s eyes judge the landscape and remind Nick of the disillusionment coursing throughout the novel.

This stands in contrast to Owl Eyes who, at Gatsby’s party, appreciates the beauty cultivated at Gatsby’s estate—in fact, appreciates it better than Gatsby himself does. His aesthetic approval runs much deeper, and his depth is a kind of foil to the superficial realities of the novel. Throughout the novel, the eyes of characters bear witness to the quiet decay of a society obsessed with money and status.

Driving

Driving carries a symbolic meaning and interacts with some of the other motifs in The Great Gatsby. Cars themselves are associated with an American sense of freedom—in a way, they perpetuate the illusion of freedom within the American Dream. Driving is also present in much of the novel’s important scenes, including the drive through the Valley of Ashes, Jordan Baker’s effortless driving skills, and Daisy’s ultimate murder of Myrtle.

In essence, the illusion of freedom under the American Dream is what drives each character to act the way they act, to the point that Daisy, who exists within the fold of the Dream, bears no consequences, and Gatsby is ultimately killed. It’s also noteworthy that Gatsby’s car is yellow—another example of the color motifs in the novel, this time displaying Gatsby’s superficial wealth.

How Writers Should Think About Motifs in Their Work

Did Fitzgerald really pay that much attention to cars in his novel? Was Brontë being artful, or was she just obsessed with birds? And isn’t Shakespeare just generally obsessed with good and evil?

Indeed, the relationship between an author and their motifs is complicated. Some emerge unconsciously and are then refined through the revision process; but an author might decide what recurring symbols and images will be written into the text before it’s even written.

So, what’s the best way to think about motifs? How do you write them? Does a long work of literature need them?

Here are a few thoughts about literary motifs in contemporary writing.

1. Let Motifs Arise Organically

It’s possible to think of a good motif before you’ve written the first word of a story. Indeed, motifs can also integrate themselves into the structure of a novel.

However, don’t expect every motif in your writing to be planned in advance. They are often effective because the arise from the writer’s unconscious, and thus the relationship between a symbol and what it represents forms more naturally in your writing.

You are also more likely to generate motifs that are original and compelling, as you’re imbuing the work with your own mind’s way of thinking, rather than planning in advance what you think will make for good literature. This kind of planning often leads, counterintuitively, to cliché forms of symbolism. It’s easy to plan for ravens to represent intelligence or witchcraft—but, in a first draft, you might accidentally represent those things through something less obvious, more unique, like a cup of tea or a lizard.

2. Pay Attention to Your Own Mind

The point is, your mind has its own symbolic relationship to things, and a good writer imbues that into their work. We all know a heart represents love, but that doesn’t make it a good motif.

Even if you plot your novel out in advance, pay close attention to your use of imagery when you write and reread your first draft. What recurs that you didn’t expect it to? What could it represent? What are your own associations with that image or idea?

Motifs make for good literature not only because they communicate something at a deeper level, but also because they’re true to life. The stories of our lives are often filled with repetitions that are too good to seem coincidental. Good literature merely mirrors life, while amplifying certain elements to discover deeper meanings.

3. Make Sure Every Iteration of a Motif Says Something New and Interesting

Every employment of a motif should convey something new about it. It doesn’t need a new message, necessarily, but it should show up in new contexts or after different plot points, reminding the reader of what it symbolizes and making that symbol more complex.

If every car in The Great Gatsby was yellow, that would just be overkill. Similarly, birds show up a lot in Jane Eyre, but they show up in different iterations: in the sky, in a cage, in a picture book, and during or after the most important events regarding Jane’s sense of freedom. Ditto the blood motif in Macbeth: sure, every character has blood inside of them at any given time, but blood only occurs when what it represents is being complicated or amplified in the story itself.

The point is to be intentional with motifs, and to utilize them only when something new, essential, or interesting is actually happening.

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