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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—False Starts:
New beginnings and false starts are a motif in the novel. David is lucky to have many chances. Other characters, such as his baby brother, barely have a single chance at life. Still, it is not until the very end of the novel, when David marries Agnes, that he manages to start something that has an unambiguously happy ending.
David's life gets off to a rocky start because, whereas Aunt Betsey was going to adopt a girl baby, she refuses to adopt a boy. David would likely have been better off in his childhood if he had had Aunt Betsey's financial support. As it is, David's mother tries to make a new beginning with Mr. Murdstone. This marriage results in abuse for both David and his mother. David is sent away to Salem House, where he at least thinks he will become a well-educated gentleman, even if he is separated from his mother and Peggotty. His mother's death cuts this new beginning short.
The idea that David's life is a series of new and often bad beginnings is sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit. For instance, Chapter 11 is explicitly entitled "I begin Life on my own Account, and don't like it." David goes to work in a factory and lives with the Micawbers because Mr. Murdstone no longer wants him at home. David must readjust to thinking of himself as a working-class person. Disliking his life at the factory and with the Micawbers, David next sets out for his Aunt's house and reestablishes himself once again. With her support, he tries out several more careers. He is less eager to explicitly call his marriage to Dora a false start, but it nonetheless is one. He eventually corrects it by starting over with Agnes.
Through all of this, David is not only trying to be happy, but he is also trying to craft the story of his own life. Will he be an educated gentleman? A factory worker? A writer? All of his new beginnings allow David to test different identities like partial drafts of a manuscript, deciding what he likes and what he doesn't as he finds his way to the final, happiest draft of his life.
Related Themes:
Chapter 1: I Am Born
Explanation and Analysis—Drowning:
The threat of drowning, both literally and figuratively, runs throughout the novel as a motif. It appears first in Chapter 1, when David recounts being born with a caul (a fetal membrane over his face), which was raffled off:
The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady [...]. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two.
It may seem strange to modern readers that this woman would want to buy David's caul, but it is because a caul had superstitious significance in 19th-century England. Being born with a caul was said to mean that a child would never drown. The woman who buys the caul, David admits, doesn't ever go to sea and wouldn't have had much chance of drowning anyway. This joke allows David to play with the idea that he may have been born lucky without actually admitting that he believes in such things. From the beginning, luck is somewhat up in the air for David. He meets a mix of good and bad fortune that is partly determined by his circumstances and partly determined by his own actions. Ultimately, he seems more lucky than other characters. His caul does not necessarily predict this good luck, but it does foreshadow it.
Still, maybe the caul foreshadows misfortune with regard to drowning. Drowning holds an outsized place in David's life, even if he remains safe from it in the direct sense. Drowning is the deepest fear of Little Em'ly. She fears drowning because that is how her father died. Although she doesn't die this way, her fear turns out to be founded because Ham and Steerforth do drown. Even David is not wholly protected from the threat of drowning, at least in the figurative sense. He describes in Chapter 33 being "steeped in Dora":
If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.
The idea that David's love for Dora would more than drown anyone else again suggests that David is surrounded by the threat of being inundated. But it also reveals how unlikely his eventual happy ending is. Through a combination of luck, determined hard work, and good people surrounding him, David manages to tread water in a world where most people go under.
Related Themes:
Chapter 33: Blissful
Explanation and Analysis—Drowning:
The threat of drowning, both literally and figuratively, runs throughout the novel as a motif. It appears first in Chapter 1, when David recounts being born with a caul (a fetal membrane over his face), which was raffled off:
The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady [...]. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two.
It may seem strange to modern readers that this woman would want to buy David's caul, but it is because a caul had superstitious significance in 19th-century England. Being born with a caul was said to mean that a child would never drown. The woman who buys the caul, David admits, doesn't ever go to sea and wouldn't have had much chance of drowning anyway. This joke allows David to play with the idea that he may have been born lucky without actually admitting that he believes in such things. From the beginning, luck is somewhat up in the air for David. He meets a mix of good and bad fortune that is partly determined by his circumstances and partly determined by his own actions. Ultimately, he seems more lucky than other characters. His caul does not necessarily predict this good luck, but it does foreshadow it.
Still, maybe the caul foreshadows misfortune with regard to drowning. Drowning holds an outsized place in David's life, even if he remains safe from it in the direct sense. Drowning is the deepest fear of Little Em'ly. She fears drowning because that is how her father died. Although she doesn't die this way, her fear turns out to be founded because Ham and Steerforth do drown. Even David is not wholly protected from the threat of drowning, at least in the figurative sense. He describes in Chapter 33 being "steeped in Dora":
If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.
The idea that David's love for Dora would more than drown anyone else again suggests that David is surrounded by the threat of being inundated. But it also reveals how unlikely his eventual happy ending is. Through a combination of luck, determined hard work, and good people surrounding him, David manages to tread water in a world where most people go under.
Related Themes:
Chapter 53: Another Retrospect
Explanation and Analysis—Replayed Memories:
The present-tense exploration of memories recurs as a motif throughout the novel. For example, in Chapter 53, the retrospective narrator describes the end of Dora's life:
I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me—turn to look upon the little blossom, as it flutters to the ground!
I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in our cottage.
The narrator "must pause" to pay attention to the figure, who is Dora. He obeys her instructions. He seems to be helpless not to let the scene come to life again before him, as though it is happening all over again. Even though the narrator and reader both know that the events described took place a long time ago, the present tense verbs give them a sense of immediacy and power over the narrator. Everything except the memory "grows dim, and fades away." This recollection of Dora springs up with more realness than the events of the narrator's actual present.
It is often at the most poignant moments of the narrative that the present tense narration takes hold. For instance, he uses the present tense in Chapter 4, when he remembers Mr. Murdstone's cruelty during his reading lessons as a boy. The way he describes his mother mouthing secret answers to him, it is as though he is a child once again, and his mother is alive. The immediacy of his most potent memories is why it is dangerous for the adult David Copperfield to reread his own book. He has the unsettling sense that he may never snap out of the reverie because he can't keep the past in the past and remain firmly planted in the present. Like Mr. Dick, he can't trust his memory not to mix up reality and fantasy.
Related Themes:
