The Gardener
by Rudyard Kipling

The Gardener: Motifs 1 key example

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—Assembly Line:

In the the story's second half, Kipling uses diction associated with manufacturing to describe the war and its sorrow. Through the metaphor underlying this motif, he compares the war to an industrial assembly line. On one conveyor belt, young men with their futures ahead of them are sent to their deaths. On another conveyor belt, their loved ones are sent into mourning. The mass scale of the war and immense number of its victims depersonalize loss and grief, making people like Helen feel as though their emotions are part of a cold, mechanized process without room for individual experiences.

The narrator touches on this several times, but elaborates most on it after the war is over and Helen finally receives an official letter stating that Michael's body has been found.

So Helen found herself moved on to another process of the manufacture – to a world full of exultant or broken relatives, now strong in the certainty that there was an altar upon earth where they might lay their love. These soon told her, and by means of time-tables made clear, how easy it was and how little it interfered with life’s affairs to go and see one’s grave.