Literary motif

Motifs are the narrative modules on which a story's plot is built up. In Shakespeare's, Othello, for example, one of the motifs in the plot is known to folklorists and psychologists as the bogey-man spectre, that is the subconscious 'threat' of the Moor or blackaman. Thus the motifs are, on one hand, characters. They can include such archetypes as the old wise man, for example, among many others. The motif can also go further, by having a character which plays a role, for example, the giant who, in the form of an ogre, eats children. The motif can also constitute a story in itself and frequently may be an animal fable or other epitome of a moral truth; for example, the wicked step-mother who mistreats the children or her husband but who is found out and punished. Other motifs may be concerned with worlds, lands, or objects of marvelous, magical or supernatural character, in the genre of folk tales and folk myth. The lexicon of ancient and modern motifs in all forms (Greek drama, folklore, the Bible, novels, plays, etc) were it to be compiled, would probably reveal the universal structural sameness of the human psyche in all places and periods since the motifs are all likely to be inherent in the human mind and thus in all human behavioury, including story making.