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
Book 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Picture the Forest:
In the highly descriptive opening of Book 1, Orleanna describes the Congolese jungle with imagery, similes, personification, and metaphor. This figurative language in the following passage forms a motif that will recur throughout the book: a living, personified land that reminds readers of Africa's unique environment, culture, history, and future.
First, picture the forest. I want you to be its conscience, the eyes in the trees. The trees are columns of slick, brindled bark like muscular animals overgrown beyond all reason. Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves. Vines strangling their own kin in the everlasting wrestle for sunlight. The breathing of monkeys. A glide of snake belly on branch. A single-file army of ants biting a mammoth tree into uniform grains and hauling it down to the dark for their ravenous queen. And, in reply, a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. This forest eats itself and lives forever.
Orleanna seems to speak directly to the reader, asking them to identify with the forest and imagine themselves within it. She personifies the jungle such that it has a conscience and eyes in its trees. The trees are metaphorically columns, as if part of an awe-inspiring structure. In the same sentence, Orleanna uses a simile to describe the trees as "like muscular animals," further personifying the forest and emphasizing how alive it is. The frogs are metaphorically "war-painted," and a simile compares them to skeletons. The vines personified into stranglers of other vines. The ant queen is personified into a "ravenous" monarch. Even seedlings on the jungle floor are personified into a choir; Orleanna gives them necks and implies they have agency. All of this imagery not only helps the reader imagine this foreign setting, but also sets up one of the themes of the novel: life and death are deeply intertwined.
