Themes and Motifs - What’s the Difference?

The terms “theme” and “motif” are related concepts, so related that they frequently get lumped together. I don't like to do that. The way I see it, while they are certainly related and similar, even co-dependent concepts, they are not the same.

When we read a story, we deal with something that doesn't exist but we imagine it as if it were: characters are like real people, imaginary worlds are as real as our own, and we measure them in ways similar to how we measure real people and the real world. This means we engage with stories as if they are genuine, if not possible. This is the level of reading that says...

• Elizabeth Bennett misinterpreted Mr. Darcy.
• Intelligent raccoons and trees can be partners in crime.
• Firemen burn books.
• And a long time ago, there was a galaxy far far away...

We tend to refer to this as the “story world”; we conceptualize a world wherein these people, places, and events exist and interact.

But literature is able to operate in more than just making something that didn't or couldn’t happen seem as if it could. In addition to the story world, there's also the thematic or symbolic level of a text. This is where, as readers, we recognize patterns in a story and across other stories so we can identify the themes. If something appears multiple times and in different forms in a story, it probably has some thematic significance. Themes don't exist within a story world any more than they exist in real life, but an author will focus on specific details and describe them to highlight these themes.

So, there's the story world, and then there's themes. The two are separate, and it's motifs that bring them together. Motifs are the parts of the story world that generate themes. Similar to symbolism, motifs and themes unite the concrete with the abstract.

A motif is an element of a story world that recurs in the same story and in other stories. We are able to recognize motifs because we encounter them frequently. In a way, stories are merely collections of motifs. The more motifs we encounter, the clearer the pattern they develop becomes, and the clearer the themes of the story become. The theme is the abstract concept invoked by the motifs.

For example, in my post on “Babylon Revisited” I referenced the “ghosts” and old friends who reappear and cause conflict in the narrative. These old friends, aided by Fitzgerald’s florid style, bring the theme of a regrettable past to the front. Similarly, in my post on “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the details that suggest the narrator is imprisoned are motifs for this theme: the locked door, the bars on the windows, the room being a former nursery, etc. And even though the bars are the only bars in the narrative, they reappear whenever the narrator tells us they are there.

One of the powerful traits that themes have, though, is that they go beyond individual narratives. I addressed this in my introduction to theme, discussing how Robinson Crusoe and Life of Pi are both narratives that are very different but they share the same theme of survival. It’s their differences and how they treat this theme that makes them interesting. The relationship between themes and motifs is still quite complicated, because while different stories will share themes, they will still present them with different motifs, treat the themes differently, and will juxtapose different themes. Robinson Crusoe has themes about middle-class pride and industry absent from Life of Pi, which takes a more dour look at a more dangerous situation.

Looking for themes can be one of the first exercises undertaken when analyzing a story or a poem. It gives the piece unity and meaning. It helps us make otherwise incomprehensible pieces fascinating and pieces that are centuries or millennia old significant and relevant. It helps us understand how stories are similar and different. If, when reading a narrative and anything recurs, odds are, the author is trying to invoke a certain theme. Themes and motifs are quite distinct, but one begets the other. They are inseparable.

Consider paisley. Paisley is a pattern, recognizable by its droplet or leaf-like patterns and intricate designs. Not every instance of paisley will be the same, but we can recognize it. The elements, its designs and shape, that make it recognizable can be considered its motifs: the shape, the intricate designs. Remove the designs, and it won't be paisley. Make it a square instead of a droplet but keep the designs, it won't be paisley. The theme? The fact that we can name and categorize it as such gives it its theme: its theme is paisley. The same themes will reappear, but every instance will be unique.

Culture in Closed Spaces: Symbolic Setting in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of those stories that is inevitable in anthologies and literature classes as an example of American women's writing at the turn of the century. Truth be told, few of were published. I'm not interested in a discussion of the history of gender politics, but it's hard not to discuss them when dealing with “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

The story was published in 1892 after Gilman herself had been prescribed the rest cure, a.k.a. confinement and the patient is allowed minimal physical movement in the hopes of calming the patient's nerves. Yes, this was a thing. While Gilman's story was a criticism of this practice, it has remained a significant piece of feminist literature to this day because it is so telling of the culture surrounding women at the time, and Gilman beautifully and eerily encapsulates it inside a single room.

The story is set in a former nursery, with the eponymous yellow wallpaper, where the wife of a physician is taking her rest cure: she is not allowed to leave the room. This lone room has a mounted bed and sits at the top of the house, with views of the entire state. Through barred windows. And she keeps seeing the image of a woman creeping in the wallpaper.

The bars make for some easy setting-symbolism: it’s a prison. But the bars are only one part of this setting’s symbolism. The narrator suggests the room is a former nursery. By being placed and kept inside, this woman – a new mother – is actually being infantilized. The rest cure basically prescribes she stay in bed around the clock. She's like a baby, kept inside, with bars on the windows meaning not just a prison, but even the bars on a crib. Even the wallpaper itself is confining, with its obtuse patterns and the woman inside the wallpaper likewise trapped. It isn't much of a stretch to draw parallels between the creeping woman in the wallpaper and the woman in the room.

At the time of the story's publication, 1892, women didn't really have a voice in American culture; this is part of the reason the same stories by women at this time period reappear in literature courses and anthologies. Universal Women's suffrage in the US was 28 years away, and World War II, the first major move of women from the domestic sphere to the workplace was about 50 years away. The Victorian era notion of “the Angel in the Home,” that a woman's role was to stay in the home and turn it into a bastion of goodness for her husband to come home to was the predominant ideal.

While Gilman specifically said she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a response to her atrocious experience with the rest cure, it can also be read as a criticism of this Victorian era mentality – perceiving women as fragile, needing to be put away and relegated to the domestic sphere. The physical space of the room where all the action takes place represents the condition of women at this point in time: confined. Gilman just used the physical space of a claustrophobic room to symbolize it.

Take this symbolic parallel a step further and think about what it means when the narrator tries to move the bed and sets about tearing down the wallpaper. After all, settings aren't simply backdrops the characters never interact with: it's important to consider how characters interact with their settings. She doesn't to go Bertha Mason and resort to arson, but she sets about tearing down the wallpaper to free the woman trapped inside. It's a story about a woman driven mad by the cultural pressures that keep her inside and her lone battle against it, to free herself and women in general.

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Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 11th ed. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. W.W. Norton, 2013. ###-###. Print.