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:
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“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)