Using Symbols and Motifs

From https://writetodone.com/6-key-steps-to-finding-your-passion-as-a-writer/:

Dancers and actors spend a lot of time exploring themselves to perfect their crafts. It is one thing to be a proficient dancer or actor. It is quite another to be an inspired and passionate artist. You must explore what is inside of you, draw it forth, and  infuse it into your role.

An inspired and passionate writer must do the same, for writing is an art as well.

Most of us are so busy with the business of writing that we have little time for rummaging around in our own lives to see what’s what.

However, if you don’t make the space and time to do this valuable work, you are tethering your writing to “just good enough.” You are walking past an untapped goldmine of inspiration that will buff the bright shine of authenticity, humanness, and raw emotion on your work.

So how does one go about poking around inside to find this passion? It takes a little time and work. It takes stepping away from busyness to look within. The deeper you dig, the greater the reward. In fact, the payoff can be tremendous. Along the way, you might learn things about yourself that will open amazing new doors of possibility and discovery for your work and your life.

From my own experience, I see this discovery work as a very strategic process. It is not always linear, but by following specific steps, you will leave no stone unturned to evolve into the passionate writer you were meant to be. Here are  five key steps to finding your passion.

Know Thyself.

• Understand what makes you tick, what motivates you, where you get your energy, and how you perceive the world. Understanding this about yourself helps you connect with your readers and your characters.
• Learn more about your personality and why you behave and operate in the world the way you do. How you view the world is reflected in your writing, so pursue awareness around this and use the knowledge to direct your writing decisions.
• Use this clarity about yourself to help you focus on what is natural and right for who you really are — not who you wish you were or who others want you to be. Your uniqueness should shine through in your writing.
• Begin this process by taking one or two personality assessments, like the Myers Briggs test. These assessments give you a framework for the process of self-discovery and exploration. They can open your eyes to parts of yourself you haven’t acknowledged before.

Define Your Qualities.

• You might have a general idea of your skills, values, and interests, but have you really dug deep to determine which of those are imperative in your life? Are you allowing your writing work to overwhelm other places to explore? These places could ultimately help your writing.
• Determine the values that define you, the skills that you enjoy (not just those that you are good at), and the interests that are fulfilling and fun, so you to be creative, expansive, and focused in your writing and in life.
• Commit to finding ways to use these newly defined values, interests, and skills. Explore new options in life so that you can exploit them in your writing. Jodi Picoult is an author who routinely scrutinizes and employs her values and interests in her novels, and she is quite prolific.

Create A Vision.

• Once you’ve gotten to know yourself better and defined what is important to you, begin to create a vision for your life and for your writing.
• By outlining a rough vision based of your personality, values, skills, and interests, you will begin to refine a purpose and mission for your writing and your life. Any passionate endeavor, bolstered by purpose, will have substance and longevity.
• As you explore the many possible details of this vision, your purpose and mission will become more and more clear to you. It will give you a road map for your writing and what you want to achieve. Use this road map to give direction and meaning to your writing plans.
• Refer to this vision frequently as you write. Draw from it as from a deep well of inspiration for your work. Allow yourself to absorb the feelings your vision evokes so that authenticity  shines through in your writing.

Remove the Roadblocks.

• As you define the elements of your vision and mission, you may encounter emotional roadblocks preventing you from taking the actions you needed to make your vision real.
• If you don’t address them, limiting beliefs, life imbalances, unresolved issues, and emotional reactions can prevent you from discovering more about yourself and your passions.
• As you uncover your own roadblocks and work through them, you will uncover more gems of inspiration for your writing. Many people use writing as a way of resolving these issues. When  you are vulnerable in your writing, you are revealing your authentic self. Your readers will resonate with that.  Elizabeth Gilbert’s best selling book, Eat, Pray, Love, is a perfect example of this level of vulnerability.

Shift Your Mind.

• As you learn about yourself, you will begin having profound “ah ha” moments. Previous ways of thinking will be challenged. Things that you once accepted will no longer be acceptable.
• You will want to address unmet needs and remove tolerations from your life that have been sapping your energy and attention. This will open your mind and your time for writing and for other passions you have discovered.
• Your perspective on what is good and right for you will open up. You sabotage your creativity when you do things you don’t want to do because you feel you “should.” Laser focus on what you want for your life to create the wide open spaces needed for your best writing.

Create Your Plan.

• The final part of the process of discovering yourself and your passion is creating an action plan based on all you have learned. You may find there are many passions and options for your life in addition to writing.
• Remember, you may have to do this work several times over the course of your writing career as you continue to evolve as a person.
• Use everything you have learned about yourself to infuse your writing with dimension, substance, and presence. Armed with new self awareness and growth, you will find passion in your writing and in your life beyond your wildest expectations.

From https://www.thebalancecareers.com/symbol-definition-fiction-writing-1277138:

In literature, symbolism is used to produce an impact, which it accomplishes by attaching additional meaning to an action, object, or name. Symbolism takes something that is usually concrete and associates or affixes it to something else in order to give it a new and more significant meaning.

In other words, symbolism allows a writer to convey something to their audience in a poetic way instead of saying it outright. This indirect approach allows an author to create nuance and complexity. The caveat for authors is that the entire context of the story needs to support the symbol’s meaning. For example, in Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 book”To Kill a Mockingbird,” thebird symbolizes innocence and beauty. Lee chose the mockingbird because it’s without guile. A mockingbird’s only purpose in life is to sing—it doesn’t want to harm anyone. Because of this, killing a Mockingbird is considered an act of senseless cruelty.

5 Different Types of Symbolism, with Examples

Metaphor
A metaphor is an implicit comparison of one thing to another without the use of a commonly known sign or equation. For example, a metaphor does not compare something using the word “equals.” One familiar example of a metaphor is Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s expression “The pen is mightier than the sword.” English playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe’s famous quote “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” is another example.

A subcategory of metaphors is “personification,” attributing a human characteristic—or emotion—to an animal, object, or concept. An example can be found in T.S. Eliot’s work “Prelude,” where he says, “The winter evening settles down.”

Simile
A simile differs from a metaphor in that a simile is not implied—it explicitly denotes a comparison. A simile very often uses either the word like or as. Two examples of similes are, “My love is like a red, red rose,” and, “As strong as an ox.”

Allegory
An allegory is very similar to a metaphor in the sense that something—usually something abstract or religious—is implicitly articulated in terms of something else that is concrete. The difference between an allegory and a metaphor is that when an allegory is employed, the comparison reflects the entire work—or a large part of the work. The best example is “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” This book by John Bunyan uses characters to present a universal picture of Christian life and is the second-best-selling book in history, after the Bible.

Archetype
The plot of a piece of fiction—or the central element in a piece of fiction—that recurs in cross-cultural myths is called an archetype. Perhaps the best example of an archetype is the literary description of the devil in various works as a cloven-hoofed, horned humanoid.

Myth
A myth is a close cousin of allegory in the sense that it is almost always symbolic and extensive. Myths can include an entire work. While the creation of myths has evolved over time—in the sense that they’re no longer specific to one culture—they are still considered communal or cultural in nature. One of the most famous myths is that of Icarus. In Greek mythology, Icarus tries to escape from Crete by fastening wings to his back made from feathers and wax. According to the myth, Icarus foolhardily flew too close to the sun—and fell into the ocean. This myth prompted the saying, “Don’t fly too close to the sun.”

Orson Welles’ Approach to Symbolism

Filmmakers often attribute emotional significance to objects. These visual symbols help draw attention to a character’s motivations, which was the case of Orson Welles’ film classic “Citizen Kane.” In that movie, a sled ultimately works as a symbol of the main character’s innocence and idealism, which he left behind in pursuit of money and power. The sled is one of the most famous symbols in film history.

Why Writers Like to Use Symbolism

It’s hard to identify a work of literature—from short poems to epic plays—that lacks some kind of symbolism. Authors like to use symbolism in their work because it accomplishes the following:

• Helps readers visualize complex concepts and follow central themes
• Affords writers the chance to relate big ideas in an efficient, artful way
• Fosters independent thinking among readers as they go through the process of interpreting the author’s text
• Adds emotional weight to the text
• Helps to conceal a theme that may be too controversial to approach openly

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For a more in depth list and explanation of symbols:

https://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=174318&seqNum=3

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

Motif Definition

What is a motif? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book or play. For example, one of the central themes in Romeo and Juliet is that love is a paradox containing many contradictions. As part of developing this theme, Shakespeare describes the experience of love by pairing contradictory, opposite symbols next to each other throughout the play, such as night and day, 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 key details about motifs:

• Because motifs are so effective in communicating and emphasizing the main themes of a work, they’re common in political speeches as well as 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. We’ll explore both definitions below.
• You may have heard the word “motif” used to describe repeating patterns outside the realm of literature. In music, for example, a motif is a short series of notes that repeats throughout a song or track. In art, a motif is a design or pattern that repeats in different parts of an artwork, or in different works by the same artist. While these additional meanings of motif are useful to know, motifs in literature function differently and have a slightly more specific meaning.

Motif Pronunciation

Here’s how to pronounce motif: moh-teef

Motifs in Depth

In order to understand motifs in more depth, it’s helpful to have a strong grasp of a few other literary terms related to motif. We cover each of these in depth on their own respective pages, but below is a quick overview to help make understanding motif easier.

• A theme is an abstract and universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature. It’s what the writer is trying to say about life and human experience in general, beyond 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. We encounter symbols constantly in our every day life: a red light is a symbol for stop, a dove is a symbol for peace, a heart 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’s The Road Not Taken, the “two roads [diverging] in a yellow wood” are symbols for two different life paths. In Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, the raven that taps on the narrator’s door as he mourns his lost love symbolizes the finality of her death.

Identifying Motifs

The main themes of a work are rarely expressed directly by a writer (for instance, Shakespeare doesn’t tell his audience directly “this play is about the contradictory nature of love”). Rather, writers reveal the main themes of their work indirectly, through different elements of the narrative such as plot developments and imagery. When readers recognize a pattern in the work they’re reading—specifically, a pattern that connects some or all of the different images or plot developments that help express a particular theme in the work—that overall pattern is the motif. Here’s a more concrete example:

• If a story centers around someone’s sudden and unexplained death, one of the main 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, perhaps the main character develops an irrational fear of choking while drinking water, or contracting disease from a mosquito bite.

This relationship between themes, motifs, and symbols (or images) can be visualized with different symbols making up a motif, and different motifs supporting an overarching theme, like so:

Motif vs. Theme

It can be difficult, at times, to clearly distinguish themes from the motifs that express them. Here are some of the key differences between themes and motifs:

• The motif is much more concrete than the abstract 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 again in different works by writers from different eras.
  • For instance, there 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 as the theme, you’re unlikely to find multiples books that use the same motif or motifs and the same repetitive pattern of symbols to do so.

To return to the Romeo and Juliet example, Shakespeare’s theme (that “love is contradictory”) is an abstract idea that finds expression in different ways throughout the story, and it’s general enough that most people will be able to relate it to their own life and experiences. By contrast, the motif of darkness and light is not a purely abstract concept, and it’s also not necessarily as broadly applicable to the lives of readers as a theme generally is.

Motif vs. Symbol

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

• Some people think 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 argue that the raven (which symbolizes death) would then be a motif.
• However, others think that there’s a bigger difference between motifs and symbols, and believe that symbols are just one building block of motifs, which are bigger, more overarching patterns that directly 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’s door and perches above the entry way to his house, and generally acts as a messenger from some other world—is partof a larger motif in poem of thresholds and borders which helps explore the themes of losing touch with reality and death.

In this entry, we’ve chosen to cover this second definition of motif—the one that separates motifs from symbols in the hierarchy of literary devices. However, many reputable sources refer to motif as a kind of symbol. What you should know is that there 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 often do consist of literary symbols like the ones we describe above—the raven that stands for death, or the path that represents a way of life—the elements that make up motifs are not always 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’s 2666

One theme of Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 is that art always escapes critics’ efforts to understand it. Bolaño explores this theme through the motif of the futile search. Throughout the novel, different characters search for things unsuccessfully:

• The first, 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 have all made careers out of studying Arcimboldi lead the search, yet 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 city’s best police detectives, who believe a serial killer is responsible. Even though he has a distinctive signature and doesn’t even try to hide the bodies of his victims, the killer is never found.
• The third search is a romantic quest undertaken by a madwoman, for a poet she slept with as a young woman. When she finds him in an insane asylum, not only does he not recognize her, but he’s only 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 statement that art, despite the best efforts of critics, has a way of resisting resolution or apprehension.

Motif in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

One theme in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is that the American dream is empty and unattainable. The book centers around the character Jay Gatsby, who claws his way into high society to win the affection of the wealthy but frivolous Daisy Buchanan, and ultimately dies because of Daisy’s 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, ambition, 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 light 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 stages of Gatsby’s longing for Daisy, during his pursuit of her, and after he dies after she abandons him. The green light symbolizes Gatsby’s longing for Daisy and his dream that he can recreate his past love with her, but it also plays into the broader motif of the color green.
• In Chapter 6, Daisy tells Nick that she’ll be handing out green cards at Gatsby’s party, and informs him that he can present her with one of these green cards if he wants to kiss her. So the cards themselves symbolize the very thing Gatsby desires (i.e., Daisy’s affection).
• In Chapter 7, the car crash that leads to Gatsby’s ruin, definitively destroying his dream of ever being with Daisy, involves a green car.
• In Chapter 9, Gatsby’s friend Nick Caraway stares at the coastline and wonders how the first settlers to America must have felt staring out at the “green breast of the new world.”

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 it’s the idea of a “New World,” true love, 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 about an Igbo warrior named Okonkwo, whose commitment to his culture’s traditions brings him honor, but also eventually leads to his downfall. In the novel, Achebe develops the theme that blindly following tradition can have 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 up 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 clan enforces out of a belief that twins are evil, alienates many members of the clan who later convert to Christianity.
• In Chapter 7, Okonkwo kills his adopted son, whom he loves deeply, in accordance with his clan’s laws, permanently scarring his other son, Nwoye, who later joins the white Christian missionaries and colonialists.

Finally, Okonkwo loses the will to live and commits suicide, devastated by having witnessed the white colonialists’ destruction of his own community’s ancient traditions (including acts of sacrifice such as those described above). Okonkwo’s inability to live without these traditions—all of which together make up the motif of sacrifice—supports the book’s broader thematic statement: that without the ability to adapt and change, 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 main themes of the work.
• They give a work a sense of structure and continuity by creating patterns that recur throughout the work.
• They can help writers weave together different and seemingly unrelated parts of a narrative.
• They enable writers to subtly restate or remind the reader of certain ideas throughout a text using vivid and often memorable imagery.

From https://www.livewritethrive.com/2014/12/10/how-to-come-up-with-motifs-in-your-novel/:

Motifs are powerful elements that writers can take advantage of when constructing their novels. But few novelists ever give thought to adding motifs. They might do so subconsciously or inadvertently, but I’d like to encourage you to take some time and deliberately construct some motifs so that they serve as superglue in your story.

We looked briefly last week at what a motif is, and how it differs from theme. However, the best way to bring a motif into your story is to tie it intrinsically into your theme. We looked at The Hunger Games and saw that not only does author Collins use an actual object or thing—the mockingjay itself, and the metal pin Katniss wears—the “song” of the mockingjay is used symbolically. The characters adopt the bird as a symbol for their revolution, and so the object and the theme are bound together.

Generating Ideas for Motifs

Once you work to develop the themes in your novel, you can create some motifs. Think for a moment about your theme, what your story is really about (using mind mapping can help with this!). What images come to mind that might represent your novel? I’ve talked at length about image systems and why they’re helpful for novelists. When creating an image system, one thing that might help is to envision a movie poster for your novel.

Ask: What key moment in your entire story would best be shown on your poster? What colors and objects would be shown? What would the characters be wearing, holding, doing? By imagining this movie poster, you might get some ideas for strong symbols that you can work into your novel, even if you’ve already written your first draft. The great thing about motifs is you can add them in after you think you’re done with your novel.

Come Up with an Object

Think about your protagonist. Imagine one object she owns that is special to her. Maybe it’s a gift someone gave her that has great significance. Maybe it’s a shell she found on the beach on an important day in her life. You can find a place to introduce this motif-object early on in the book, then show it again a few times at important moments in your story, and then bring it into the final scene in some symbolic way. All your character may have to do is pick up the shell from off the table and look at it and think about it. She might perhaps recall the pivotal day she found it, and how she felt back then, and how she’s changed since then. That is a very effective use of a motif.

Objects can spur not just memory but powerful emotion, so if you have an object connected to a very important moment in a character’s past (whether something painful or joyful), you can then springboard from there to infuse this object with deep meaning.

Move from Object to Concept

To take it further, using the shell as an example, you could have multiple connections with this object so that not just the shell itself is a symbol or triggers a memory. Perhaps a concept can be formed around the object and brought out. What can a shell represent? Maybe you choose a barnacle that clings tenaciously to a rock to survive, but the harsh waves have broken it free from the rock, and now the creature inside is dead. If you have a character whose life has been shattered by a horrific event, and she’s now lost and floundering, dying inside, that shell can take on heavy symbolism.

What if you choose a sand dollar (I use one in my novel Someone to Blame as a motif), which is sometimes thought of as a symbol of hope, or to represent redemption, salvation, or restoration of faith? Or you could choose an oyster, which creates a beautiful pearl due to a speck of sand irritating its tender flesh. If your character can “relate” in some way to this shell—if it can reflect or represent something significant to her—you have a powerful motif. An oyster is pretty ugly to look at, but inside a thing of beauty is created out of pain. Right there can be found a lot of symbolism for a variety of story types.

Reinforce the Motif

Take that last idea one step further. If a character feels ugly, unworthy of love, and then is given a string of pearls by the man who comes to love her, this reinforces the motif.

A client of mine had a weak title for her novel, and also needed something to superglue her story to take it to a higher level. She had an early scene showing her main character, a young Russian girl, who was given a cheap bracelet by her drunk mother’s unfaithful lover. Angry at her pathetic lot in life, this girl throws down the bracelet and breaks the links of the chain. Her life at this point is shattered. By adding a scene near the end of the book showing her adoptive mother in the US giving her a fine quality link bracelet to represent her love for her new daughter, the symbolism is brought out. The title was changed to Scattered Links (author Michelle Weidenbenner), in order to drive home this motif of the bracelet and the links. The word link also becomes charged due to its association with the character being linked to new family members and friends, and breaking and repairing the links to her past. As a result, this good novel became a great one, and went on to win some prestigious awards.

So spend some time thinking about your protagonist. What is her biggest emotional issue? What is the lie she believes about herself and can’t get past? What is her core need? Can you brainstorm a list of ten or so items in her life or past that could be symbolic for her?

Freewriting and Word Association

One thing you can do is a word-association exercise. Write down an emotion or thematic component from your novel, such as grief or forgiveness. Then freewrite all the words and images that come to your mind without censoring what you write. Picture in your head your character grieving. Where is she? What does she see? What does she touch or hold? What comforts her—a song, a picture, a place?

When finished, go over your list and see if you can grab two or three of these items and find ways to give them a place in some scenes. Perhaps your character can find this object. Or see it in a store window. The possibilities are endless, but the key to all this is 1) it must have emotional significance for the character 2) it should somehow tie in with your themes, and 3) it should be simple and clear in its symbolism.

Let’s say you have freedom as an important theme. You may have chosen “bird” as one of the words that came to mind when freewriting. A bird is a common symbol for freedom, and, hence, a good one (using universal symbols that many people share is a good thing). A caged bird represents imprisonment (on any level—actual, emotional, etc.).

Do you remember the best seller Jonathan Livingston Seagull? I thought it was pretty corny, but it sold more than a million copies and topped the New York Times best-seller list for thirty-eight weeks. It was even made into a movie. The novella featured a seagull named Jonathan (who knows why—perhaps to symbolize the “ordinary man”) who is a member of a flock in which individuality is frowned upon. Jonathan finds himself a loner and an outcast. After performing feats of tremendous courage and skill, he is expelled from the flock. This gives him the freedom to develop his skills, and in so doing he reaches a heaven of sorts. The lessons that Jonathan learns in his travels reflect both a greater peace of mind and a freedom to be himself.

Although this book was an allegory (and a bit over-the-top preachy, to me—but hey, that was the 70s!), featuring a young seagull’s efforts to rise above the ordinary, it can teach us something about the power of motifs and symbols.

You don’t have to go whole-hog into allegory to make powerful points in your novels, however. Just using a few well-developed and meaningful motifs can add that cohesion and depth your novel might be lacking. Why not give it a try?

From https://www.masterclass.com/articles/writing-101-what-is-a-motif#what-is-the-difference-between-motifs-and-symbols:

5 Famous Examples of Motifs

To help you get more familiar with motifs, are a few motif examples from famous works of film and literature:

1. The Godfather films: In Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather series, oranges are a visual motif. Oranges are repeatedly featured on screen just before a character dies. Outside of these movies, oranges have no established relationship with death—in fact, citrus fruits are more likely to be associated with warmth, sunshine, sweetness, and life. But by repeatedly placing oranges in close proximity to characters’ demises, the films establish oranges as a recurring motif related to the theme of death. This unique motif creates a compelling tension between death and the vitality and energy one ordinarily associates with fruit. The orange motif hints at one of the central ideas of Coppola’s films: that death is inevitable, and can come at any moment, no matter how eagerly one clings to life.
2. Hamlet: In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the language of decay is a verbal motif, expressed in recurring language. In Act V, while holding Yorick’s skull, Hamlet observes: “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.” Earlier in the play, he comments that both kings and beggars will be eaten by worms, and compares human conception to “breed[ing] maggots in a dead dog.” This repeated language of decay speaks to two of the play’s themes: the mystery of death, and the corruption of institutions.
3. Jane Eyre: In Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, fire is a motif incorporated in the story’s imagery, language, and key plot incidents. Throughout the book, hearth fires evoke warmth and comfort; candlelight is described as dazzling and energizing; and passionate characters are described as “hot,” like “fire,” and “like Vulcan” (the Roman god of the forge). But fire is also presented as a dangerous force in the novel: fires cause two destructive events, while a major character’s pyromania embodies her mad, uncontrollable fervor. (Ice and coldness also constitute a contrasting motif in the novel, symbolizing the absence of emotion and tenderness.) Taken together, this fire motif represents strong emotion and love—feelings Jane requires for a full life, but which also have the potential for harm. Jane’s efforts to achieve the right balance of such powerful feelings is a major arc of her story.
4. A Tale of Two Cities: In his epic novel surrounding the French Revolution, Charles Dickens uses duality as a motif. Throughout the book, various characters, settings, and images have doubles or counterparts. For instance, the story takes place across two cities (London and Paris). Charles Darnay has his double in Sydney Carton, with whom he shares a physical resemblance. The two key female characters, Lucie and Madame Defarge, are opposites of one another. Indeed, the famous opening lines of the novel explore the idea of duality (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”). This motif highlights the central themes of the book: the fragility of justice, and the possibility of redemption from the forces of darkness.
5. Slaughterhouse Five: Kurt Vonnegut’s novel employs a repeated phrase as a motif: “So it goes.” Vonnegut adds this phrase as a commentary on each death that occurs in the story, no matter how major or minor. This motif serves to reinforce one of the main themes of this and other works by Vonnegut: that regardless of our class, circumstances, or differences, death comes equally to all people. While this message may feel dark and depressing, Vonnegut interprets it differently, suggesting that by accepting the inevitability of death, we can live fuller lives and find common ground with others.

How to Identify a Motif

When you’ve finished reading a book (or experiencing another narrative work), take some time to reflect upon it. Were there particular images, types of language, or situations that repeated? If the motifs were well crafted, chances are that they will have made an impression on you. What do you think was the significance of the motif you’ve identified? How did it relate to the deeper themes of the work?

You can also look for motifs while you read (or experience the narrative for the first time). If a particular passage or scene jumps out at you because of its striking language or imagery, take note of it. Then, keep an eye out as you continue reading for more passages that make use of this imagery or language. If you encounter another one, you’ve found a motif.

How to Use Motifs In Your Own Writing

Writers develop motifs in different ways. To start shaping compelling motifs in your own work, here’s a step-by-step approach you can use:

1. Spend some time thinking about the central themes of your story. Take a walk or bike ride, or meditate, or stare at the ceiling for a while — whatever gives you a space to think.
2. Write down the themes that come to mind. You should be able to state your themes as short, clear phrases, like “The Dangers of Technology,” “Anger and Forgiveness” or “The Power of Friendship.”
3. Looking at each of the themes you’ve written, jot down any images, words, memories, or events that come to mind for each. These ideas will serve as the “raw materials” for your motifs. For example, if your theme is “The Desire for Freedom,” some details that could serve as motifs include police sirens, a courtroom setting, or the American flag.
4. From the ideas you’ve brainstormed, pick one element and think about where it might fit best in the story. Remember, a motif must be used repeatedly in order to be effective. Is there a recurring character or setting best embodies this idea? What would happen if your chosen element popped up at your main character’s most triumphant moments? What about their lowest moments?

From https://www.shortform.com/blog/stephen-king-symbols/:

Stephen King: Symbols and More

Beyond the three basic elements of narration, characters, and dialogue, the writing toolbox contains many more tools, ones you remember from English courses—themes, symbolism, alliteration, stream of consciousness, repetition, back story, and so on. Stephen King’s use of symbols is clear in every story.

King’s advice on these tools is to make use of any tool that will enhance your story. Yet don’t go too far—remember that the point of the story is to tell a story, not to show how many words you can alliterate.

Often, you’ll see opportunities to add literary flourishes after completing your first draft. Patterns that you weren’t previously conscious of may now appear. Your revision is a chance to polish these.

King focuses on two devices in particular: symbols and themes. While you might have unsavory memories of expounding on both in your English essays, they’re both natural parts of storytelling and can be quite simple.

Symbols

Symbolism is the use of an object or word to represent an idea other than its literal meaning. (Shortform note: For instance, the white color of the whale in Moby Dick is typically a symbol of beauty and virtue (as in Italian marble and weddings), but in nature the color white often belies a terrifying destructiveness (as in polar bears and great white sharks).)

Like other literary devices, Stephen King says symbols enrich the story. They also become a focusing device through the story, providing yet another opportunity for telepathy.

Again, adornments merely adorn; they are not the reason the story exists. Don’t premeditate your symbols before you write the story—it’ll feel artificial. Instead, discover the symbol as you unearth your story. As you write or revise, if you notice the symbol, then bring it out further and polish it, as though you were excavating a gem.

Commentary From Stephen King: Symbols in Two Books

• While writing The Green Mile, King quickly realized the story was about an innocent man being executed for a crime he didn’t commit. He changed the character’s name to J.C., a symbol of the “most famous innocent man of all time” (Jesus Christ). (Some criticized this as simplistic symbolism; King responds that he’s never trying to be an intellectual.)
• In Carrie, King noticed only after writing that blood perfused the story: at the beginning (when Carrie has her period), at the climax (a prank dousing Carrie with pig’s blood), and the ending (where a survivor of Carrie’s wrath has her own period). King wasn’t conscious of this pattern while writing, but found it meaningful when revising. He tried to connect blood to its many connotations—sacrifice, women’s coming of age, heredity.