Motif

A motif is a meaningful component of a literary piece that repeatedly appears throughout the course of a story. An author can create a motif using several means. These include symbols, images, descriptions, or certain situations.

Literary sciences adopted this term from musical arts, where it means a rhythmically organized group of notes that composes the central theme of a melody. The word motif can be found in most European languages and derives from the Latin verb "moveo" which can be translated as "moving." This term came into active use at the beginning of the 19th century, slowly spreading across all of Europe.

A motif is commonly confused with such terms as "theme" and "plot." While a motif and a plot are closely tied, they are separate entities, with the former being in service of the latter. The plot is a unified result of all the motifs and other literary devices and tropes.

Themes are much more similar to motifs, and a substantial number of researchers don’t differentiate the two, using both these terms as equivalents. However, despite the similarities, they have some important distinctive features. Thus, usually, it's impossible to point out which phrase or word is a realization of a particular theme, while motifs always have a verbal representation in a text.

Motifs play a part in developing themes and ideas of a story. During the creation of a literary work both bigger and smaller motifs act as pieces of the same puzzle.

The most popular themes migrate through time periods and genres, as they get reinvented and given new meaning. Such concepts as freedom, loneliness, exile, memory, love, revenge, dreams, and depression have seen hundreds of different versions by each generation of writers. Themes receive new interpretations thanks to the unique motifs that authors use to weave them into the text.

For example, in Leo Tolstoy’s "War and Peace" the central theme is obviously war. However, the author depicts this subject using several motifs, which include the devastation of an aristocratic family (the Rostovs), several tragic love stories (Pierre and Ellen, Andrey Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova), and near-death epiphanies (Andrey Bolkonsky). All of these motifs together make up the main theme of this epic novel.

Unlike other literary devices, a motif is oftentimes a direct reflection of the writer's thoughts that gain importance due to their resurgent nature. By describing the same situation a couple of times, the author intentionally brings the attention of the reader to specific moments that have significant meaning on a larger scale of the literary work.

Each story can have several motifs, with some of them lying on the surface and others becoming visible only after a detailed analysis is made. Even though the specific iterations of a motif are spread throughout the story, they are all connected with invisible links that work together to create one whole.

Motifs can also be subdivided into different groups based on their distribution. They can either be found in a single work or within the entire bibliography of an author. It's quite common for a motif to resurge in different books, emphasizing a theme that is crucial to a writer. For example, in the majority of Umberto Eco's novels, the narrator is the person who supposedly created the book. The motif of the protagonist being a writer can be found in such works as "The Prague Cemetery", "Baudolino", etc.
Some researchers suggest that identical motifs can be found in the works of an entire genre, period, or movement. For example, in the 19th century, American romantics had a tendency to use the images of ghosts or demonically possessed cats in their works. This trend was especially apparent in the poetic circle.

Classical literary works are rich with motifs that have roots in mythology. For example, the labyrinth motif can be found in thousands of books, as its origins date back to ancient Greece. It can be represented in both a literal sense and a symbolic sense. The most notable examples of the 20th century include "The Name of the Rose" by the aforementioned Umberto Eco, "The Babylon Library" by Jorge Luis Borges, and "The Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny.

Another popular motif is the voluntary death of the main character because of the woman. You can discover it in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe, where the protagonist ends his life after finding himself in the middle of a love triangle.

The alienation of the protagonist is also quite commonly used by authors. For example, J.K. Rowling has used this motif in all seven books about Harry Potter, as the main hero always feels "out of place" and unwanted, despite being adored by the majority of professors and students.

The Summary:
A motif is a resurging element of a literary piece that provides significant value to the story. This term has derived from the Latin word "moveo" and can be translated as "moving." Unlike a theme, motifs always have an explicit verbal representation in the text. It can be a separate word, phrase, or entire situation, which is repeatedly described on several occasions. Its primary function is to better develop the themes present in a written work.
Motifs aren't restricted to a single story. They can travel across different books or be commonly used by entire literary movements or genres. Correctly identifying the motifs that were put into a piece is crucial in understanding the main ideas of a literary work.