Major Motifs
Major motifs include:
- Sanity vs. insanity
- The individual vs. society
- Heroes and heroism
- Absurdity
- Paranoia
- Language and meaning
- The inefficacy of bureaucracy
- The terror of war
Read more about this topic: Yossarian
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or motifs:
“What, really, is wanted from a neighborhood? Convenience, certainly, an absence of major aggravation, to be sure. But perhaps most of all, ideally, what is wanted is a comfortable background, a breathing space of intermission between the intensities of private life and the calculations of public life.”
—Joseph Epstein (b. 1937)
“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)