Themes, Symbolism, and Motifs

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Themes, Symbolism, and Motifs

• Advanced Composition
• Maus

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Theme

• A common thread or repeated idea that is
  incorporated throughout a literary work. A theme
  is a thought or idea the author presents to the
  reader that may be deep, difficult to understand,
  or even moralistic.
• In Maus theme is not presented in a preachy
  manner, such as in fables. In fact, it is not
  presented directly at all. You extract it from
  the characters, action, and setting that make up
  the story. In other words, you must figure out
  the theme yourself.

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Themes in Maus

• Familial guilt
• Survivors guilt
• Freedom
• Faith
• Identity
• Conflicts between past and present
• Luck
• Love

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Symbolism

• A symbol is a word or object that stands for
  another word or object. For example, a dove is a
  symbol for peace.
• Anthroporphism- giving animals human
  characteristics
• Cats- Germans hunt mice protect the home from
  pestilence
• Mice- Jews pestilence breed rapidly live
  silently among people hard to get rid of
• pigs - Poles Jews dont eat pork and consider
  the pig a dirty animal
• fish - British the British have been long
  renowned for their navy fish and chips
• dogs - Americans mans best friend the
  liberators.
• frogs - French double meaning frogs are
  slippery, slimy frogs can change into princes
• Reindeer Scandinavians from north
• Moth gypsy

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Motif

• A recurring object, concept, or structure in a
  work of literature. A motif is important because
  it allows one to see main points and themes that
  the author is trying to express, in order that
  one might be able to interpret the work more
  accurately.
• A recurring pattern or symbol

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All three concepts seem to be similar- so how can
I keep them separate?

• Theme(s)- main idea(s). The big take-aways or
  applications to life.
• Motif- can be a structure, an image, a color,
  etc. as long as it repeats throughout large
  portions of the text for a purpose. (Thinka
  symbol that repeats)
• Symbol- an object, character, color, figure that
  helps to make an abstract idea more concrete.
• Both symbols and motifs enhance and support the
  theme!

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Spiegelmans Inspiration Beatrix Potter Ballet
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Louis Wain European Artist
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A Look into Wains Schizophrenia
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Calvos La bete est morte A picture book about
WWII months after the liberation

• A French cartoonist
• Hitler as Big Bad
• Wolf So convincing
• Disney threatened to
• sue

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Horst Rosenthals Mickey in Gurs - 1942

• A prisoner in a French internment camp (he later
  died in Auschwitz that year)
• Story had deep roots

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Postcard Spiegelman kept in his workspace Cop
Cat - 1982