Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Motif is: A Motif is anything symbolic that recurs in a story. It could be a thing or a place or a statement. The green light in The Great Gatsby is a Motif. The repeated,"My father said that the reason for living is getting ready to stay dead." in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is a motif. A graphical user interface toolkit. See Motif (widget toolkit). In music, a motif is a perceivable or salient reoccuring figure or fragment that may used to construct the entirety or parts of complete melodies, themes, and even accompaniment. Most certainly not a synonym for theme. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.