the literary motif - william freedman

The Literary Motif: A Definition and EvaluationAuthor(s): William FreedmanReviewed work(s):Source: NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Winter, 1971), pp. 123-131Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1345147 .Accessed: 03/01/2013 00:51

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The Literary Motif: A Definition and Evaluation

WILLIAM FREEDMAN

Since the rise of the New Criticism in the Thirties, a criticism preoccupied with the work-in-itself and consequently with literary technique, there has been a steadily increasing flow of critical essays primarily concerned with language. One important phase of this study of language has been the attempt to discover clusters or families of related words or phrases that, by virtue of their frequency and particular use, tell us something about the author's intentions, conscious or other- wise. Mark Schorer, concerning himself only with families of metaphors, terms them "metaphoric substructures."' Reuben Brower, also mainly concerned with recurrent images or metaphors, terms them "continuities."2 But although most critics have concentrated primarily on the metaphoric members of these language families, it seems obvious that the literal components, in conjunction with the figurative, form a larger unit that may prove more revealing still. And when we combine the literal and the figurative into a single family unit, we emerge with what is perhaps most accurately called the literary "motif."

Although there has been much discussion of the function of motifs in specific works, so far as I know there has been nothing approaching a detailed analysis of the device. I should like, therefore, to attempt such an analysis, a description of what the literary motif is and how it functions. And when I have done that I should like then to examine the question of its literary value. It is a fairly auto- matic critical assumption that to demonstrate the existence of an elaborate motif in a given work is to demonstrate something that enhances the value of that work. I agree. But at the same time I think it advisable to inquire into the reasons be- hind this widespread assent. It is not enough to show that an author has employed a motif or that one has found its way into his work without at least inquiring why or if its presence is an asset.

Perhaps as useful a starting point as any is the entry under "motif" in one of the standard literary dictionaries:

A theme, character, or verbal pattern which recurs in literature or folklore.... A motif may be a theme which runs through a number of different works. The motif of the imperishability of art, for example, appears in Shakespeare, Keats,

1 "Fiction and the 'Matrix of Analogy,' " Kenyon Review, XI (1949), 539-60.

2 The Fields of Light: An Experiment in Critical Reading (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962). See particularly pp. 13, 14, 52-56, 103-17, 124-26, 148-50, 157-59, 161-63.


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Yeats, and many other writers. A recurring element within a single work is also called a motif. Among the many motifs that appear and reappear in Joyce's Ulysses, for example, are Plumtree's Potted Meat, the man in the brown mackintosh, and the one-legged sailor.3

My concern is with the latter part of this description, with the motif as it is employed within a single work. The statement in the Reader's Guide supplies a reasonable start toward a more complete definition of this kind of motif by ac- counting fairly well for the literal use of motifs, the repetition for emphasis of a self-contained, self-explanatory theme or the like. But it leaves much to be said. For one thing, it fails to make clear that the motif in a single work, like that which runs through many different works, may take the form of a verbal pattern. And it may be a family or, to borrow a term from Kenneth Burke, an "associational cluster," rather than merely a single, unchanging element. Second, it does not take into account what is perhaps the primary function of the motif as it is most often used and discussed, namely, to act symbolically. This description, in other words, does not encompass the money or finance motifs in James's The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl, or Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night. The language of money, finance, and economics is indeed recurrent in these novels. But it recurs for a reason. Viewed collectively, this language refers to something outside itself, namely, the economic preoccupation of the society or some of its members. The motif, then, tells the reader something- to establish a convenient separation-about the action of the story (either its total structure or the events), the minds of the characters, the emotional import or the moral or cognitive content of the works. It tells him subtly what the incidents perhaps tell him bluntly. It is, in short, symbolic.

But this is not the same as saying that each instance of this language is a symbol, for two major lines of differentiation distinguish the symbolic motif from the symbol. First, the symbol may occur singly. The motif is necessarily recurrent and its effect cumulative. For this reason Steinbeck's symbolic turtle, which appears on the opening pages of The Grapes of Wrath and synecdochically foreshad- ows the movements and spirit of the Okies, is a symbol and not a motif. But if we were to find scattered throughout the book frequent references to, say, a turtle-neck sweater which Tom Joad is never without or frequent reiterations of remarks to the effect that Ma Joad is hard-shelled or slow as a tortoise but equally persistent, then in this "associational cluster" we would have the makings of a motif. Here each reference to turtles, tortoises, or to things turtle-like or tortoise- like would not necessarily be a symbol, for each reference would not always be a thing or event, but often only a symbolic way of talking about a thing or event.

This takes us to the second distinction. A symbol is something described; it is an event or it is a thing. It may be Melville's white whale or the mode of Ahab's death; it may be the New Testament's cross or the crucifixion of Christ upon it; or it may be the scarlet letter or little Pearl's peculiar reactions to it. But it is always a thing or event described. A motif, on the other hand, although it may

3 Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz, A Reader's Guide to Literary Terms (New York: The Noonday Press, 1960), p. 129.

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appear as something described, perhaps even more often forms part of the description. It slips, as it were, into the author's vocabulary, into the dialogue, and into his imagery, often even at times when the symbolized referent is not immed- diately involved. For example, in our hypothetical case, Tom Joad's turtle-neck sweater or Ma Joad's figurative hard shell might be referred to even when their perseverance is not at issue. Or, to cite a real example, Dreiser makes constant reference in Sister Carrie to Carrie's "dull little round" and Hurstwood's "exclu- sive circle" well before the question of circularity and futile, repetitive striving arises. The motif prepares us for the time when it will.

The motif, then, may become a part of the total perspective, pervading the book's atmosphere and becoming an important thread in the fabric of the work. Such permeation is achieved, for example, by the motif of circularity in Sister Carrie,4 by the machine and animal motifs in The Grapes of Wrath,5 by the isolation motif (doors, gates, fences, and so forth) in The Sound and the Fury,6 and by the music motif in Sterne's A Sentimental Journey, to name but a very few of many.

The motif is not a symbol, but it may be symbolic. When it is, it acquires this character cumulatively and either by its relationship to the action (whether it be the total shape of the action or simply one or more of the events), to one or more of the characters, to the affective or cognitive content of the work, or to any combination of these possibilities. Whether the motif is symbolic or literal, however, it is through its service to one or more of these same aspects of the work that it achieves its purpose, and the motif therefore generally falls into one or more of three principal categories: cognitive, affective (or emotive), and structural. A motif may contribute to only one of these three aspects of the work. The motif of commerce and property in Austen's Persuasion, as an instance, is primarily cognitive. It serves, as Professor Schorer observes (p. 540), to reveal to the reader the "social fact" that most characters in the novel measure value entirely in arithmeti- cal and economic terms. Most motifs, however, relate to more than one of these aspects, although one may be of paramount importance. The motif of circularity in Sister Carrie is perhaps chiefly cognitive. It underscores Dreiser's presentation of the circular futility of human striving. But since this point is made largely by means of a repetitive circular patterning of the events of the novel, the motif relates to and underscores the novel's structure as well as its cognitive content. Although the chief function of the music motif in A Sentimental Journey is its enrichment of the emotive quality of the work, it is importantly related to both the cognitive content and structure as well. In Tristram Shandy it underscores the emotive quality, the structure and the cognitive content of the work, but prin- cipally its structure.

4 William Freedman, "A Look at Dreiser as Artist: The Motif of Circularity in Sister Carrie," Modern Fiction Studies, VIII (1962), 384-92.

5 Robert J. Griffin and William Freedman, "Machines and Animals: Pervasive Motifs in The Grapes of Wrath," JEGP, LXII (1963), 569-80.

6 Freedman, "Techniques of Isolation in The Sound and the Fury," Mississippi Quarterly, XV (1961), 21-26.

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Two factors are indispensable to the establishment of a motif. The first is the frequency with which it recurs. The recurrence of references to finance in only two or three, or even five or ten, instances in a novel the size of, say, The Golden Bowl, would hardly constitute a motif. It might well be nothing more than coincidence or necessity. Obviously no specific numbers of references can possibly be fixed as requisite to the motif. That will vary with each work. But members of the family of references should occur often enough to indicate that purposiveness rather than merely coincidence or necessity is at least occasionally responsible for their presence. They should pervade the atmosphere sufficiently to assure that they will be at least subliminally felt.

Second is the avoidability and unlikelihood of the particular uses of a motif, or of its appearance in certain contexts, or of its appearance at all. References to hats in a novel about a milliner, for example, are all but unavoidable. Consequently, more than mere frequency of occurrence is required if hats are to function as a motif. This is not to say that their appearance or use must be unlikely to the point of inappropriateness. Quite the contrary, appropriateness is a basic test of efficacy. What I do mean is that the contexts in which the references appear or the uses to which they are put (extra literal uses, for example) do not demand references from the field of the motif. In a novel about a milliner, a man's home, automobile, or other articles of clothing might serve equally well as indices of character, social status or the like. The repeated use of hats to these symbolic purposes may, however, make these and other references to hats unexplainable as anything other than instances of a motif.

Assuming we have discovered a motif in a given work, our next concern is to measure its effectiveness. Five basic factors determine the efficacy of a motif. The first is again frequency. All other factors being equal and within limits to be adumbrated below, the greater the frequency with which instances of a motif recur the deeper the impression it is likely to make on the reader. The effect, of course, will also be increased the more extensive the individual references are. One need hardly be told that an extended metaphor or episode involving the motif subject is more likely to catch the reader's attention than a passing reference.

The second factor is again avoidability and unlikelihood. Clearly the more uncommon a reference is in a given context, the more likely it is to strike the reader, consciously or subconsciously, and the greater will be its effect. A reader might pass unnoticingly over a reference to a drummer, for example. But he is not so likely to remain unaffected by a metaphor that compares the impulse to pity to a musical instrument, a very common sort of metaphor in A Sentimental Jour- ney and Tristram Shandy. For both of these criteria a qualification is needed. There would seem to be a law of diminishing returns here, the efficacy of the motif beginning to decline at the point where unlikelihood begins to shade into unsuit- ability or frequency into tedious repetition. Maximum power will therefore prob- ably be achieved at the degree of frequency and improbability just short of this negative tendency, a point that varies from work to work.

A third factor determining the potency of a motif is the significance of the contexts in which it occurs. A motif that appears at most or all of the climactic points

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of a work, particularly if the symbolized referent of the motif is in the fore at these points, has greater effect than one that occurs only in less central passages, particularly if these passages do not overtly concern the tenor of the motif. The fact that the crucial event in the Benjy section of The Sound and the Fury-his misunderstood abuse of the passing schoolgirl-results from Benjy's opening the accidentally unlocked gate and that the crucial event in the Jason section concerns the stealing of the money he has locked in a strong box, which he keeps in a dresser drawer inside a closet of his locked room, combines with the general pervasiveness of the motif of isolation and confinement to make that motif an important factor in the book and to insure the fulfillment of its purpose.

A fourth factor is the degree to which all instances of the motif are relevant to the principal end of the motif as a whole and to which they fit together into a recognizable and coherent unit. If a unified effect is to be produced it will hardly be achieved by a motif in which all the parts are related only remotely and ramify into a variety of unrelated purposes: the closer the association between the components of the cluster the more unified their effect. The finance motif in Tender Is the Night is rendered more effective by the fact that its components point almost exclusively to the corrosive powers of money (as with Dick Diver's "emotional bankruptcy") rather than to several other possible qualities not related to the intended effect of either the motif or the work as a whole.

The fifth and final factor, which concerns only those motifs whose function is symbolic, is the appropriateness of the motif to what it symbolizes. Obviously a motif of circularity is more appropriate to a book about the circular repetitiveness of human fortune and behavior and the circular, futile strivings of the ill-equipped dreamer, as in Sister Carrie, than to one about, say, a love triangle. And again The Sound and the Fury is a good example. Constant references to doors, fences, gates, and the like are patently appropriate as symbolic representations of the Comp- sons' physical and spiritual isolation.

A possible criticism of the reader or critic who seems to find a motif in every cupboard is the observation that in certain instances the references seem virtually unavoidable. One may claim, for instance-and quite rightly-that James could hardly have written a novel like The Golden Bowl without alluding frequently to matters of finance. In the light of what has been said so far, however, this seems to me no very damaging accusation. If the reader can show satisfactorily that the presence of the motif is at least sometimes quite easily avoidable, that its overall frequency is greater than sheer coincidence or necessity might produce, that the separate members of the family or cluster operate together to a common end, and that they are singularly appropriate to a given aspect of the work in hand, he has, I think, shown both the existence and efficacy of a motif in that work. It is then virtually inevitable that the cumulative force of the motif, acting by association, must at least to some extent suffuse every occurrence of it, however unavoidable or insignificant any one may appear independently.

Perhaps now I may hazard a definition. A motif, then, is a recurrent theme, character, or verbal pattern, but it may also be a family or associational cluster of literal or figurative references to a given class of concepts or objects, whether it be

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animals, machines, circles, music, or whatever. It is generally symbolic-that is, it can be seen to carry a meaning beyond the literal one immediately apparent; it represents on the verbal level something characteristic of the structure of the work, the events, the characters, the emotional effects or the moral or cognitive content. It is presented both as an object of description and, more often, as part of the narrator's imagery and descriptive vocabulary. And it indispensably requires a certain minimal frequency of recurrence and improbability of appearance in order both to make itself at least subconsciously felt and to indicate its purposiveness. Finally, the motif achieves its power by an appropriate regulation of that frequency and improbability, by its appearance in significant contexts, by the degree to which the individual instances work together toward a common end or ends and, when it is symbolic, by its appropriateness to the symbolic purpose or purposes it serves.

But what of the literary value of a motif? What, if anything, does it contribute to the work it graces and to the reader's appreciation of that work? Everyone who writes about literature of course hopes that the nature and value of his efforts are self-evident. In most critical studies (book reviews and biographical and biblio- graphical notes usually excepted) this hope takes the form of an implicit syllogism that goes something like this: All works, or at least the one or ones here under consideration, are better if they possess a certain attribute or attributes or can be understood in certain terms. This book has these attributes or can be understood in these terms. Therefore, this is a better book than was previously sup- posed. As I've said, this syllogism is almost always implicit and only the minor premise is expressed in writing. In many cases the hidden assumptions might not be completely acceptable were they brought into the open, and although it is in such cases that exposure is most useful I think something may be gained by exposing even quite widely held evaluative assumptions in order that the reader may be a bit clearer about just what he is agreeing to.

Purely descriptive studies need not take a rear seat in the critical bus. The writer performs a worthwhile function when he attempts no more than to elucidate what he sees in the work, when he seeks to increase the reader's understanding of a work of art. The discovery of the motif should be as valuable-or at least nearly so-to the reader who sees no additional artistic merit accruing to the book as a result of the addition of this new information as it is to the reader who thinks it a better book therefore. If that hypothetical reader can be led to better understand what is going on in a given literary work, even to better understand why he does not like it, I think it will have been worth the effort. Nevertheless, let it be admit- ted that I do attach value to the motif. How widespread the approval of a well- handled motif in literature really is would seem to be a question for the pollsters. But while I can speak only for myself, I think it would be generally agreed that the discovery in a given work of a motif adequately fulfilling the criteria sug- gested above tends to enhance appreciation and alter judgment as well as increase understanding. The question then is "Why?" In what sense may we justifiably consider "motif" as a value term?

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I think it is plain that unlike such terms as, say, "unity," or "order," "motif" is not an aesthetic primitive. That is to say our approval of the motif seems to derive by implication from several more fundamental premises or axioms. One such premise and one possible explanation of what I believe to be its acceptability as a term of implicit approbation may be found in Kenneth Burke's exaltation of the synecdoche. The synecdoche, as he defines it, is "the figure of speech wherein the part is used for the whole, the whole for the part, the container for the thing contained, the cause for the effect, the effect for the cause, etc."7 Since the symbolic motif is basically microcosmic, since it is a part of a literary work that may often stand for the whole, it performs, I think, a synecdochic function. Consequently it may justly derive some of its appeal from that which Burke discovers in the synecdoche. "The more I examine both the structure of poetry and the structure of human relations outside of poetry," says Burke, "the more I become convinced that this is the 'basic' figure of speech, and that it occurs in many modes besides that of the formal trope" (pp. 23-24). As Burke points out, "we use the same word for sensory, artistic and political representation": our sensory abstractions "represent" the tree; the colors and forms in a painting "represent" the society as a whole. The fetish, the scapegoat, and perhaps above all the name are further instances of symbolic representatives of the whole. Clearly, then, the symbolic representation of a whole or of other parts by a single part forms an indispensable part of both the way we see things and the way we communicate them. This helps at least partially to explain why the literary motif, a subtle and elaborate variation of this figure in a work of art, would be likely to attract our interest and approval.

As I have defined it, the motif is a complex of separate parts subtly reiterating on one level what is taking place on another. It thus multiplies levels of meaning and interest. A second premise from which our approval of the motif may be derived, then, is that subtlety, richness, and complexity are desirable qualities in a work of art. This generalization does not always hold, for doubtless there are times when the barest simplicity is preferable. Nevertheless, we do take pleasure in at least a certain degree of subtlety, richness, and complexity. We say that King Lear is a greater achievement than any of Shakespeare's sonnets, and that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a greater achievement than his Second Piano Sonata, and one of the reasons is complexity. The reasons for complexity's hold upon us are not far to seek. Complication involves us more continually, more deeply, and more completely. It brings, as Coleridge said poetry must, "the whole soul of man into activity." But this is familiar stuff. Less often remarked (which is to say, I have never seen it mentioned) is the possible role of anthropomorphism. Spinoza once observed that if triangles had the power of intellectual conception they would conceive a triangular god. It seems equally likely that our attraction to complexity and its correlatives stems at least partially from the fact that the human organism is itself a highly subtle complex of parts functioning, to our own endless wonder, toward a single end: life. Clearly, human behavior and human

7 The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action (rev. ed.; New York: Vintage Books, 1957), pp. 22-23.

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relationships are no less complex. If, therefore, art is to function as an "imitation of life" (in whichever of the almost endless ways one might choose to interpret that phrase) and if it is to satisfy man's anthropomorphic inclinations and desires, complexity must be a part of it. So pervasive are these inclinations that the whole of organismic physics, the physics that was dominant from Aristotle through Newton and that to a certain extent persists to this day, has an anthropomorphic base; that is, it is based on the analogy between the human organism and the universe.8 And just as anthropomorphism has served as a foundation for man's attempt to interpret the universe, so has it exerted an important influence on matters of desire and preference, although the anthropomorphic view of God and the universe is also, as more recent physics has shown, very likely a matter of preference as well as an attempt at understanding. Anthropomorphism has been sug- gested, for example, as a possible explanation for man's demonstrable affinity for symmetry in art and architecture. It seems to me at least as applicable to his preference for the qualities of richness and complexity.

Since all of the works cited here are novels and since the motif is chiefly a novelist's tool, it seems worthy of note that in two of the most useful definitions of the novel, or of a particular kind of novel, complexity occupies a central place. For Henry Fielding in his famous Preface to Joseph Andrews, a comic romance- his term for the kind of novel he claimed to be writing and whose status he hoped to insure-

... is a comic epic poem in prose: differing from comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more extended and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters.

Two centuries later Ian Watt, defining in retrospect the genre as a whole, has this to say:

Formal realism. . . is the narrative embodiment of a premise that Defoe and Richardson accepted very literally, but which is implicit in the novel form in general: the premise, or primary convention, that the novel is a full and au- thentic report of human experience, and is therefore under an obligation to satisfy its reader with such details of the story as the individuality of the actors concerned, the particulars of the times and places of their actions, details which are presented through a more largely referential use of language than is common in other literary forms.9

Watt's definition of the novel and Fielding's definition of his own kind of novel

8 In Philosophy of Science (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1957, p. 119), Philipp Frank points out that "Newton explained the planetary motions by an analogy with the behavior of human beings, just as Aristotelian physics did." Similarly, Auguste Comte, in Positive Philosophy (trans. Harriett Martineau [London: George Bell & Sons, Ltd., 1896]), Book III, Chapter 1 remarks that "The spirit of all theological and metaphical philosophy consists in conceiving all phenomena as analogous to the only one which is known through immediate consciousness-Life."

9 The Rise of the Novel (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959), p. 32.

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and of the form as he hoped it would evolve have very little in common. For as Watt makes clear it was the tradition of formal realism, not that of Fielding's classicism and polished artificiality, that finally won out. Nevertheless, although they agree in little else, they both insist on complexity. The principle of plenitude seems to apply to products of human no less than divine creation.

Perhaps one may sum up the value of the motif in the combination of its intellectual and affective appeals. Intellectually, since the motif usually points to a skillful author capable of subtlety and complexity, it first of all enhances the reader's respect for that author. This increased respect, I think, becomes inextri- cable from his impression of the work. We may not like to admit it-and admit- tedly all may not feel it-but for many of us the wonder we feel in the presence of, say, the genius of Shakespeare translates into increased appreciation of every evidence of that genius. I am prepared to suggest that the discovery that the tragedies are, after all, the issue of that infinite conglomeration of monkeys would in some degree diminish our response and appreciation. We are, at bottom, quite in love with ourselves as a species and are awed by what some of us, at least, can do. "Did one of us do that?" we wonder. And the fact that one of us did makes us love it all the more. We love the sign for what it points to as well as for what it is.

Second, and perhaps more basically, subtlety and complexity are themselves abundant sources of literary enjoyment and appreciation for reasons already discussed. And third, the motif appeals to whatever analytic interests we may have, to our sheer delight in discovering a technique and in watching it work both on its own and as a spoke in a well-oiled wheel. Affectively, assuming that the emotional effect or effects sought by any work are worth eliciting at all, it follows that the reinforcement of those effects on various levels, particularly the enrichment of the overall effect by means of a part, can only add scope and depth to the reading experience.

A final word about the motif, not as a literary device but as part of a critical approach. The kind of approach to fiction I have tried to outline here, it seems to me, performs that uncommon but useful coalescing function of bringing together under one roof the all too often disassociated schools of criticism. In its concentra- tion on language, technique, and the text itself, the method is perhaps primarily what is generally called "New Critical." But in so far as it also investigates the possibility of authorial intention and awareness and, more important, the meaning of the motif to the contemporary audience and its probable effect on the given work's first readers, it attempts to make use of the abundant fruits of biographical and historical analysis as well.

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Article Contentsp. [123]p. 124p. 125p. 126p. 127p. 128p. 129p. 130p. 131

Issue Table of ContentsNOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Winter, 1971), pp. 101-192Front MatterAestheticism versus the Novel: The Example of "Salammb" [pp. 101 - 106]Aesthetic Allegory in "The Turn of the Screw" [pp. 107 - 122]The Literary Motif: A Definition and Evaluation [pp. 123 - 131]Response as Reformation: "Tristram Shandy" and the Art of Interruption [pp. 132 - 146]The Rhetoric of "Giles Goat-Boy" [pp. 147 - 158]PolemicsWilliam Styron: The Absence of Social Definition [pp. 159 - 170]

ReviewsMimesis in Decline [pp. 171 - 174]Perilous Shandy [pp. 174 - 177]Utopian Wells [pp. 178 - 179]Tidy Critic [pp. 180 - 185]Dostoevsky's Children [pp. 185 - 186]Lyrical Solitudes [pp. 187 - 189]Heroic Deliverance [pp. 190 - 192]

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