Themes and Motifs
One possible theme is ancients versus moderns, a theme that has existed since the time of Swift. Titus only wants Cheeta because she is a modern girl surrounded by dazzling technology, and her father is an innovative scientist who runs a mass-production factory, and he's spent all his life in a moldy, antiquated castle run by tradition. But after having a long affair with Cheeta, he seems to realize she is self-centered and cruel, and rejects her. Cheeta becomes treacherous and vengeful and uses her technology and resources to hideously recreate Gormenghast, and she thinks nothing of it. Furthermore, even though her factory is efficient, sleek, and modern, it never seems to do anything. The most the scientists manage to accomplish is ruin Muzzlehatch's future by using a death ray to burn his zoo. As David Louis Edelman notes, the prescient Steerpike never seems to be able to accomplish much either, except to drive Titus' father mad by burning his library. The general theme, therefore, would seem to be that the false allure of the future is as dangerous and stupid as the false allure of the past.
Read more about this topic: Titus Alone
Famous quotes containing the words themes and/or motifs:
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)