Theme Motif

It is a unifying generalization about life or remark about the human condition

• Symbol

• Theme

• Motif

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker“Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” Dee said. “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” “I reckon she would,” I said. “Goodness knows I been saving ‘em, for long enough with nobody using ‘em. I hope she will!” I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style. “But they’re priceless!” she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!” She can always make some more,” I said. “Maggie knows how to quilt.” Dee looked at me with hatred. “You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!” “Well,” I said, stumped. “What would you do with them?” “Hang them,” she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts…. “You just don’t understand,” she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. “What don’t I understand?” I wanted to know. “Your heritage,” she said. Based on the passage above, what would be a logical statement of theme?

• A person’s heritage can only be remembered by displaying items, like hanging a quilt.

• It’s important to know how to quilt in case you need to stay warm.

• The narrator has two daughters, Maggie and Dee. Dee wants a quilt that the narrator is going to give to Maggie.

• One’s true heritage is something he or she holds within the heart and lives out in real life, not something that is simply displayed on a wall just because it’s a trendy thing to do.

Based on the passage above, what would be a logical statement of theme?

• Sometimes people don’t know that there’s a better life beyond the one they are living until they’re pushed outside their comfort zones and challenged to make new opportunities for themselves.

• Miss Moore is a teacher who wants to open the eyes of her students to see that they can be whoever they want to be.

• Sometimes toys cost more than they should, and people should be careful about wanting things they can’t afford.

• Parents don’t need to buy expensive toys for their children because the toys end up broken anyway.

What would be a logical explanation of how the sailboat is a literary symbol in "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara?

• The sailboat symbolizes life’s opportunity, which is equally available to all people yet seems unfairly more accessible to people who grow up with money.

• The sailboat symbolizes an expensive toy, which anyone can buy if he or she can afford it.

• The sailboat symbolizes shame, which some people feel when they go to places they haven’t been before.

• The sailboat symbolizes handcrafted items, which often take a long time to make and end up costing a lot of money.

“Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather
He wore…a red carnation in his jacket’s buttonhole….When the weather was warm the girls made lemonade, which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher….He came out of the room in his red robe….He remembered the old woman from whom he had bought the red flowers….The carnations in his coat were drooping with cold, he noticed; all their red glory over.

Based on the passage above, what would be a logical motif?

• cold weather

• lemonade and summertime

• the color red and flowers

• the glass pitcher

A theme should always be written as...

• A sentence or statement

• A phrase

• One or two words

• A brief summary of 5-8 sentences. 

motif is

• something that shows up once in a piece of work to connect it all together.

• a repeated image, theme, symbol, character, subject, or detail.

• an abstract idea

• All of the above

Theme is

• the main idea of the text

• derived from the thesis statement

• the author's purpose

• the central concept or the underlying message that is conveyed through a piece of writing

A motif

• is a narrative element with symbolic meaning that repeats throughout a work of literature

• may come in the form of reoccurring imagery, language, structure, or setting

• may also take the form of repeated music, visual components, colors or physical movements.

• is all of the above

Which of the following is a motif in The Masque of the Red Death?

• the color red

• the party

• the castle

• the mask