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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—Books:
Throughout 1984, Orwell shows that the written word fosters critical thinking and diversity of thought. This motif emerges by way of two physical books: Winston's diary and the book. The former comes into being over the course of the novel's first book, allowing Winston to give concrete shape to his political beliefs and test out his political resistance. The latter is alluded to early on, but assumes a more material presence at the end of the novel's second book. Both the diary and the book supplement Orwell's ideology and project with 1984 itself: to reveal the power of the written word, especially in relation to intellectual and political freedom.
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Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Animal Analogies:
Orwell makes frequent use of animal analogies to describe characters in 1984. While the novel is lacking in actual animals, it is full of people with animalistic appearances and tendencies, which Orwell underlines through metaphors and similes.
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Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Varicose Ulcer:
Over the course of the novel, the narrator comments repeatedly on a varicose ulcer above Winston's right ankle. Chronic and incessant, this ulcer flares up alongside a recurrent cough when Winston feels ill at ease. As a motif, the ulcer is a physical, everyday manifestation of the effects of totalitarian repression.
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Book 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Telescreen:
Just as it does within the dystopian world of 1984, the telescreen has a near-constant presence throughout the narrative. This motif symbolizes surveillance and discipline. The ubiquity of the telescreen ensures that Big Brother dominates every home, every office, and all public places.
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Explanation and Analysis—Sex and Celibacy:
While describing Winston's experience of the Two Minutes Hate, the narrator introduces one of the novel's main characters. The reader will later learn that this girl is named Julia, but in the beginning of the novel she is simply known as "the dark-haired girl." Her early characterization is situationally ironic, as she is sexualized while being described as a representative of the Junior Anti-Sex League. From this point, the clash between sexuality and sexual repression becomes a motif in the novel. For Winston and Julia, some of their most important resistance is their desire for each other, as they build a relationship on both physical passion and romantic love.
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Book 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Golden Country:
Early in the novel, the narrator describes a dream in which Winston stands in a landscape he calls "the Golden Country." This landscape reappears at multiple points in the novel, both in dreams and the real world. As a motif, the Golden Country represents a world of purity, privacy, and hope, in which nature and life are untouched by Big Brother's totalitarian repression.
The reader first encounters the Golden Country in the third chapter of the first book, which begins with Winston dreaming sorrowfully of his mother. This mournful dream gives way to the Golden Country, bringing a marked shift in tone and mood:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world. In his waking thoughts he called it the Golden Country.
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Book 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Chocolate:
Throughout 1984, chocolate plays an important role in Winston's life and memories. As a motif, it teeters on the edge between awareness and ignorance, luxury and deprivation, pleasure and shame. In addition, chocolate exists at the heart of one of his most intense childhood flashbacks.
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Book 1, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—2+2=4:
In the first book, it occurs to Winston that the Party has the power to change the most fundamental aspects of reality—like the mathematical fact that 2+2=4. This equation becomes a motif in the novel, as Winston writes the following in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." This foreshadows his punishment later in the novel, when O'Brien tortures him until he allows for two and two to make five.
The equation represents Winston's desire for a world structured by unalterable truths and verifiable facts. He yearns for certain aspects of reality to be sacred, beyond the Party's reach. For him, freedom springs from the ability to see reality for what it is. As long as he knows what is true and has the ability to state it, "all else follows." In the world of 1984, people do not have this freedom. Orwell foreshadows that the Party will quash Winston's hold on this simple truth, when the thought first appears as a coincidental example in the seventh chapter of the first book:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. [...] And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
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Book 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Oranges and Lemons:
As Winston and Mr. Charrington examine a steel engraving of St. Clement's Dane together, the latter shares a line from a rhyme he knew as a little boy ("Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s"), which comes from an English nursery rhyme that lists out old London churches. This allusion becomes a motif in the work, as both the traditional nursery rhyme and London churches come to serve as traces of a past before the Revolution. When it appears that Mr. Charrington only remembers a few of the lines, Winston becomes determined to learn the rest. Seeking to build a bridge between the present and past, Winston sets out on a sort of scavenger hunt for the whole rhyme.
In the eighth chapter of the first book, when the nursery rhyme first comes up, Mr. Charrington only remembers the first and last lines:
Unlock with LitCharts A+How it goes on I don’t remember, but I do know it ended up, Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. It was a kind of a dance. They held out their arms for you to pass under, and when they came to Here comes a chopper to chop off your head they brought their arms down and caught you.
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Book 2, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Chocolate:
Throughout 1984, chocolate plays an important role in Winston's life and memories. As a motif, it teeters on the edge between awareness and ignorance, luxury and deprivation, pleasure and shame. In addition, chocolate exists at the heart of one of his most intense childhood flashbacks.
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Explanation and Analysis—Golden Country:
Early in the novel, the narrator describes a dream in which Winston stands in a landscape he calls "the Golden Country." This landscape reappears at multiple points in the novel, both in dreams and the real world. As a motif, the Golden Country represents a world of purity, privacy, and hope, in which nature and life are untouched by Big Brother's totalitarian repression.
The reader first encounters the Golden Country in the third chapter of the first book, which begins with Winston dreaming sorrowfully of his mother. This mournful dream gives way to the Golden Country, bringing a marked shift in tone and mood:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world. In his waking thoughts he called it the Golden Country.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sex and Celibacy:
While describing Winston's experience of the Two Minutes Hate, the narrator introduces one of the novel's main characters. The reader will later learn that this girl is named Julia, but in the beginning of the novel she is simply known as "the dark-haired girl." Her early characterization is situationally ironic, as she is sexualized while being described as a representative of the Junior Anti-Sex League. From this point, the clash between sexuality and sexual repression becomes a motif in the novel. For Winston and Julia, some of their most important resistance is their desire for each other, as they build a relationship on both physical passion and romantic love.
Unlock with LitCharts A+
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Fraternity:
The language of fraternity is prevalent in 1984. This motif comes out through two supposedly conflicting but ultimately similar forces: Big Brother and the Brotherhood. In both, the ideal of fraternity is intended to simulate familial bonds and appeal to people's sense of duty.
Big Brother is the totalitarian leader of Oceania. More than an actual character in the novel, he serves as the embodiment of the state apparatus—Big Brother is the Party funneled into a single, symbolic figurehead. Goldstein explains this in the book," which Winston reads in the ninth chapter of the second book:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—2+2=4:
In the first book, it occurs to Winston that the Party has the power to change the most fundamental aspects of reality—like the mathematical fact that 2+2=4. This equation becomes a motif in the novel, as Winston writes the following in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." This foreshadows his punishment later in the novel, when O'Brien tortures him until he allows for two and two to make five.
The equation represents Winston's desire for a world structured by unalterable truths and verifiable facts. He yearns for certain aspects of reality to be sacred, beyond the Party's reach. For him, freedom springs from the ability to see reality for what it is. As long as he knows what is true and has the ability to state it, "all else follows." In the world of 1984, people do not have this freedom. Orwell foreshadows that the Party will quash Winston's hold on this simple truth, when the thought first appears as a coincidental example in the seventh chapter of the first book:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. [...] And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Fraternity:
The language of fraternity is prevalent in 1984. This motif comes out through two supposedly conflicting but ultimately similar forces: Big Brother and the Brotherhood. In both, the ideal of fraternity is intended to simulate familial bonds and appeal to people's sense of duty.
Big Brother is the totalitarian leader of Oceania. More than an actual character in the novel, he serves as the embodiment of the state apparatus—Big Brother is the Party funneled into a single, symbolic figurehead. Goldstein explains this in the book," which Winston reads in the ninth chapter of the second book:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world.
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