A motif is a detail within the story that repeats itself throughout the work. Examples of common motifs include colors, character traits, objects, locations, or situations. The sky's the limit, really. What makes something a motif is when it shows up several times throughout the story. Think of them as breadcrumbs left by the author to draw your attention toward something important in the theme or message of the story.
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, sounds or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
What is a symbol/motif found in the novel you have read or are currently reading? Explain how the author uses this throughout the novel, and why it is important. Make sure you include the title and author, as well as specific details to support your answer.
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xD First!
Okay, so I think that motif-wise, then my favorites are probably from the book "The Schwa was Here", because the author is very experienced, and I've noticed that each of his books gets better as they're more recent.
But anyway, back on topic, this book uses motifs in a single chapter or passage more than one throughout the whole book. Normally each chapter will start out with a simile or metaphor, and then keep going back to it within that chapter. One of my favorites most recently went something like(I don't have the book with me right now, so I can't do a direct quotation)
Sometimes, Life is like a haircut. It looks really weird afterwards, and you keep worrying about it and hating it at first, but then you get used to it. But by then it's just about time for you to get another one, and the whole thing starts over again.
And then, throughout the chapter, they kept on going back to how the character had "Gotten used to the haircut" and then how their life may have turned again.
A motif I found was in my book I’m reading called, “Deliver us From Normal,” by Kate Klise. The motifs were bunnies that randomly popped up in parts of the story. I think that the bunnies were used to show innocence. An example of this when the main character was arguing with his mother. The bunnies couldn’t do anything to make them stop arguing. Another time I think the bunnies showed innocence was when the family was leaving their home. The bunnies couldn’t move their cage themselves. They had to wait until a family members came to put them in the car.
☺Gabrielle Fignar☺
A motif that I found in the book, "Pants on Fire" by Meg Cabot, was a thought of hers that she kept repeating, she kept thinking, "I am so dead." She would say this whenever something happened where she thought that her three boyfriends would find out that she was cheating on them.
Lizzie T.
One of my all-time favorite sensory language paragraphs is from a book called “The Mouse and the Song”, by Marilynne K. Roach. “The Mouse and the Song” is about a mouse who wanders into a man’s cabin to the sound of his flute.
“Mouse held perfectly still listening and listening. She was lost in the music and filled with it as with breath, so that she did not know when it had entered into her head and her into it. A trill of high notes fell in that small room like bright rain, followed by a lower passage that ran like streams under the earth. The flute sang clustering sounds, bright as sun sparkles on moving water, and single notes that struck the air with the sharpness of winter stars.” I love this quote because it puts my heart all aflutter and I hear the music of that flute singing in my ears, I can see the bright rain and the sun sparkles on water and it makes me wonder about the tune of the song, and I wish I could hear it. (Amy P.)
One symbol that was in the book, New Moon that I am currently reading was, “I will look death in the face and laugh." I thought that was a symbol because it is saying that she is going to try different kinds of things that she is going to try to prove what she has said. It gives me a hint of what is going to happen later on tin the book. (Kaitlyn O.)
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