Themes, Symbolism, and Motifs
Advanced Composition
Maus
Theme
• A common thread or repeated idea that is
incorporated throughout a literary work. A theme is
a thought or idea the author presents to the reader
that may be deep, difficult to understand, or even
moralistic.
• In Maus theme is not presented in a preachy
manner, such as in fables. In fact, it is not presented
directly at all. You extract it from the characters,
action, and setting that make up the story. In other
words, you must figure out the theme yourself.
Themes in Maus
• What are some themes you have already seen in
Maus?
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Familial guilt
Survivor’s guilt
Freedom
Faith
Identity
Conflicts between past and present
Luck
Love
Symbolism
• A symbol is a word or object that stands for another word or
object. For example, a dove is a symbol for peace.
• Symbols in Maus?
• Prisons
• Eyes
• Anthroporphism- giving animals human characteristics
▫ Cats- Jews
▫ Mice- Germans
▫ pigs - Poles: Jews don’t eat pork and consider the pig a dirty
animal
▫ fish - British: the British have been long renowned for their navy.
▫ dogs - Americans: “man’s best friend”; the liberators.
▫ frogs - French: double meaning – frogs are slippery, slimy (; frogs
can change into princes.
Motif
• A recurring object, concept, or structure in a
work of literature. A motif is important because
it allows one to see main points and themes that
the author is trying to express, in order that one
might be able to interpret the work more
accurately.
(I personally think of motifs as patterns)
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Motifs in Maus?
Numbers/ Dates
Masks
Trains
Circles/ Cycles
All three concepts seem to be similarso how can I keep them separate?
• Theme(s)- main idea(s). The big take-aways or
applications to life.
• Motif- can be a structure, an image, a color, etc.
as long as it repeats throughout large portions of
the text for a purpose.
• Symbol- an object, character, color, figure that
helps to make an abstract idea more concrete.
▫ Both symbols and motifs enhance and support the
theme!