מוטיף

Repetition alone is not enough

• A motif 母题 is a unified pattern of recurring objects or images used to emphasize a significant idea in large parts of or throughout a text.
• Four conditions, all doing work: unified, recurring, emphasizing a significant idea, across large parts of the text.
• A repeated image that fails any one of them is a repetition, not a motif.

One red scarf is an accessory; the fifth red scarf may be asking you to notice a pattern.

Unified is the condition students skip

• Unified means the recurrences belong to one pattern, not merely to one word.
• Keys, locks, a shut door and a lost latch form a unified pattern; keys appearing in three unrelated senses do not.
• So show the join, exactly as with imagery in unit 5.

From detail to motif to symbol: a symbolic reading needs a returning detail and the text to support it

Scale distinguishes a motif from a symbol

• A symbol can be one object in one scene; a motif must run through large parts of or throughout the text.
• So evidence for a motif has to be spread, and three widely separated instances usually suffice.
• Two adjacent mentions are a repetition; two hundred pages apart they are a pattern.

Name the significant idea

• The CED requires the pattern to emphasize a significant idea — so an unnamed idea means an unfinished analysis.
• The motif of keys stops at the pattern; the motif of keys emphasises who has the right to enter names the idea.
• The idea, not the object, is what the essay is about.

A motif pass

• List the recurrences and check they are spread across large parts of the text.
• Show what unifies them into one pattern.
• Then name the significant idea the pattern emphasises.