Structure in Modern Prose
Senior 6 · Literature in English
Structure in Modern Prose
Lesson 4 of 5
25 min
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book 1, Chapter 1
Dickens's novel is set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. Its first sentence sets ten pairs of opposites side by side, and the whole novel follows the pattern: two cities, two look-alike men (Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton), the calm of an English home placed against the violence of the Paris streets.
In Great Expectations (1861), young Pip is taken to Satis House to play for the rich, strange Miss Havisham. Long ago, she was abandoned on her wedding day. She still wears her wedding dress; Pip notices that her watch and a clock in the room have both stopped at twenty minutes to nine. He looks closer:
I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861), Chapter 8
Stopped clocks, the yellowed dress, and later in the novel a rotting wedding cake on a table: these images of frozen time and decay return again and again. They are a motif.
Definition
| Motif | Symbol | Theme | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A recurring element | One thing standing for another | An idea or insight |
| Form | Concrete or verbal, repeated | Usually concrete | Abstract; stated as a sentence |
| Satis House example | Stopped clocks, decaying dress and cake | The stopped clock = a life frozen at the moment of betrayal | Clinging to past injury destroys the self and harms others |
| Kind | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Characters | Okonkwo and his father Unoka; Okonkwo and his calm friend Obierika | Each shows what the other lacks |
| Scenes | Okonkwo's death followed at once by the District Commissioner's plan to write a paragraph about him | Tragedy set against indifference: the reader feels the injustice |
| Settings | Dickens's quiet London home and the Paris mob | Peace and violence define each other |
| Sentences (antithesis) | "the spring of hope … the winter of despair" | An age of extremes, captured in one sentence |
Worked example: tracing a motif
Task: Trace the motif of stopped time in Satis House and say what it contributes.
Tip
A motif must move. A good answer does not just list where a motif appears; it shows how its meaning grows or changes from one appearance to the next.
Warning
"What is a Motif?", from the Oregon State Guide to Literary Terms. Listen for how a motif differs from a symbol and a theme, and compare its examples with Satis House.
Practice
Sources and credits
