Motifs
"Rogues in the House" is written in an extremely ironic fashion, and as a Jacobean revenge story. It is eventually revealed that Nabonidus' "usurper" is actually his pet, a (relatively) intelligent and strong ape-like creature, Thak, who got the better of his master.
The story's title reflects the story's other main irony, the rivalry between Murilo and Nabonidus. Each man has been using his position of influence for personal profit (Nabonidus by manipulating the king; Murilo by selling state secrets to foreign rulers); when they stumble upon each other in the pits beneath Nabonidus' house, the two rivals realise that they are each equally corrupt and, indeed, that Conan may be the most morally honest of the three because he does not attempt to conceal his criminal nature.
Read more about this topic: Rogues In The House
Famous quotes containing the word motifs:
“The poetic act consists of suddenly seeing that an idea splits up into a number of equal motifs and of grouping them; they rhyme.”
—Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)
“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)