Previous
Mood
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
Key Examples in Moby-Dick
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Magnitude:
Throughout Moby-Dick, images of magnitude are repeatedly used as a motif to reflect the scope and weightiness of the novel itself. The two most obvious symbols of magnitude presented in the novel are that of the sea and that of the leviathan, both of which are emphasized as not only grand in scale, but also in what they represent.
Chapter 3: The Spouter-Inn
Explanation and Analysis—Limits of Art :
The limits of art to fully and accurately represent its subject forms a motif in the novel that highlights the limits of the novel itself. This motif plays out most extensively in Ishmael’s exploration of man’s repeated attempt to depict the whale in art—and, for that matter, his repeated failure. This idea is first introduced in Chapter 3, before Ishmael embarks on the Pequod. He comes across the “boggy, soggy, squitchy picture” of a whale hanging in the Spouter Inn:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. [...] a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast.
Related Themes:
Chapter 42: The Whiteness of the Whale
Explanation and Analysis—Whiteness:
The color white is used as a motif in Moby-Dick to emphasize humans' fear of the unknown. The terror of whiteness is most clear in its association with Moby Dick, the White Whale, whose whiteness Ishmael describes as being the thing “that above all things appalled me.” Indeed, in an attempt to explain the terror of this whiteness, Ishmael spends a whole chapter cataloging the various other places where whiteness appears in nature and the different significances it has acquired: whiteness as “beauty” in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; whiteness as “innocence” in brides; whiteness as typifying the “majesty of Justice” in the ermine of the Judge; whiteness as divine power in the esteem of the “white forked flame” by Persian fire worshippers. While Ishmael here emphasizes the range of meanings that white can have, by showing just how much significance has been attributed to the color all over world, the motif works to demonstrate how it is a colour consistently associated with power.
Related Themes:
Chapter 55: Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
Explanation and Analysis—Limits of Art :
The limits of art to fully and accurately represent its subject forms a motif in the novel that highlights the limits of the novel itself. This motif plays out most extensively in Ishmael’s exploration of man’s repeated attempt to depict the whale in art—and, for that matter, his repeated failure. This idea is first introduced in Chapter 3, before Ishmael embarks on the Pequod. He comes across the “boggy, soggy, squitchy picture” of a whale hanging in the Spouter Inn:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. [...] a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast.
Related Themes:
Chapter 79: The Praire
Explanation and Analysis—Indecipherable Signs:
Moby-Dick is full of signs that characters are unable to read, forming a motif that represents the limits of language and knowledge. One example of this comes with Ishmael’s description of the physiognomy of a whale, which is itself a symbol of mystery in the novel. In an attempt to describe the face of a whale, Ishmael expresses his inability to fully comprehend it. Addressing the reader, he says:
Unlock with LitCharts A+If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant’s face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale’s brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can.
Related Themes:
Chapter 99: The Doubloon
Explanation and Analysis—Circularity of Life :
Images that relate to circularity are repeatedly used in Moby-Dick, forming a motif that hints at man’s own entrapment in the circularity of life. Throughout the novel, readers see the circle come up literally in objects such the compass and the doubloon, which when probed further prove to have figurative implications. In Chapter 99, “The Doubloon,” a chapter that documents how each crew member of the Pequod interprets the doubloon in a different way in accordance with their own subjectivity, Ahab alludes to the symbolic significance of the circle. Looking at the scene depicted on the doubloon, Ahab describes how the coin reflects himself back at him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician’s glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self.
Related Themes:
Chapter 124: The Needle
Explanation and Analysis—Magnetism :
Throughout the novel, power and control is frequently described in relation to the idea of magnetism in a motif that blurs science and the supernatural while reinforcing the role of fate. After a storm that reverses the needles of the ship’s compasses, Ishmael reflects on the power of magnetism. He says:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner’s needle, is, as all know, essentially one with the electricity beheld in heaven.
Related Themes:
