A symbol is an object or image that carries meaning beyond itself. A motif is a symbol that recurs, accumulating meaning as it goes.
How to tell a symbol from a thing
Three tests:
- Repetition. Once is a prop; four times is a pattern.
- Placement. It turns up at moments the text has marked as important.
- Weight. The language around it gets more careful.
If a candle appears in one scene, it is light. If characters keep carrying candles, and every one of them goes out at a moment of decision, the play is doing something.
Tracking a motif properly
Take light and dark in Romeo and Juliet. Do not collect quotations — build a table:
| Where | What form | Who says it | What it means there |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | Romeo’s “day’s sight” | Romeo | Misery, self-dramatised |
| 1.5 | ”she doth teach the torches” | Romeo | Juliet as the source of light |
| 2.2 | Juliet as the sun | Romeo | Light as truth, not decoration |
| 3.5 | Dawn as the enemy | Both | The motif reverses |
The reversal in the fourth row is the paragraph. A motif that changes meaning is the text arguing.
In prose
The same method: in Moon of the Crusted Snow, track the generator, the store shelves, and the language of “the end of the world” — who says it, and who declines to.
The trap
Do not decide what something symbolises and then hunt for evidence. Track it first, then say what the pattern shows. The direction matters: the second produces readings that survive an argument.
Curriculum connection
B2.3
identify a variety of elements of style in texts and explain how they help communicate meaning and enhance the effectiveness of the texts (e.g., determine the differences in meaning or effect when the same symbol, such as the sun or water, is used in two different poems; compare the images, symbols, and literary devices used in an Aboriginal myth and a Greek myth; explain how a mythical allusion in a piece of literature or an advertisement enhances the theme or message; determine what effects are achieved in works by two different authors, one of whom uses a variety of sentence types while the other does not)
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B1.6
analyse texts in terms of the information, ideas, issues, or themes they explore, examining how various aspects of the texts contribute to the presentation or development of these elements (e.g., explain how figures of speech in a text highlight the theme and help create a mood; determine how the setting in two short stories helps clarify each story’s main theme)
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