Themes, Motifs and Symbols

Week 4!

For this class, I introduced themes, motifs and symbols.

I gave examples of common themes, like good vs evil, coming of age, family, loyalty, survival, courage, etc...   and gave examples in other books they have read.  We then talked about themes in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I introduced motifs and gave examples of the theme of light and darkness in Tangled and the motif of the sun.  I talked about the theme of what is beauty in Beauty and the Beast and the motif of windows used throughout the movie.  The eyes are the window to the soul.  I briefly mentioned how doors are a motif in Frozen, how they were all closed in the beginning and then opened.  We talked about the motif of seasons, stone/ice and fire/life in the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Lastly we talked about common symbols like birds/freedom, ice/death, fire/life, snakes/evil, trees/streadfast and the symbols in Narnia.