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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Troubled About My Soul
Explanation and Analysis—The Sahara Again:
In a motif, Tish uses the metaphor of the Sahara Desert to describe the prison and life beyond it. Early in the book, Tish visits Fonny in prison to tell him she is pregnant, and she leaves the building in terrible sadness, loath to abandon Fonny. As she winds her way out of the prison, she describes the prison's unforgiving hallways and oppressive atmosphere:
I walked out, to cross those big wide corridors I've come to hate, corridors wider than all the Sahara desert. The Sahara is never empty; those corridors are never empty. If you cross the Sahara, and you fall, by and by vultures circle around you, smelling, sensing, your death. They circle lower and lower: they wait. They know. They know exactly when the flesh is ready, when the spirit cannot fight back. The poor are always crossing the Sahara. And the lawyers and bondsmen and all that crowd circle around the poor, exactly like vultures.
Here, Tish metaphorically compares the vast prison to the Sahara desert to express how large and empty it is. Then, she expands the metaphor, using the Sahara to represent the structures of power that control the lives of underprivileged people. In that desert there are "vultures" who prey on weak travelers; these represent "lawyers and bondsmen" with predatory practices that exploit Black people, poor people, and other marginalized groups.
Later, when she meets with Fonny again in prison, she continually refers to the corridors as the Sahara, forming a motif. The metaphor works in both ways as above: literally to represent the prison's wide hallways and figuratively to describe the punitive experience of life in an unjust society. After Tish visits the prison to tell Fonny that Mrs. Rogers has fled to Puerto Rico, once the couple's time to talk runs out, a guard drags Fonny back to his cell, and Tish leaves: "He followed the guard into the unimaginable inferno, and I stood up, my knees and elbows shaking, to cross the Sahara again." Here again Tish describes both her passage through the prison, and her attempt to endure life without Fonny in White-dominated New York, using the Sahara.
Near the end of the book, Tish visits Fonny to explain to him that Mrs. Rogers picked him out of the lineup because he is Black. This is one of the lowest points in the novel, but Tish returns to the Sahara with newfound pride:
A silence falls, and we look at each other. We are looking at each other when the door opens behind Fonny, and the man appears. This is always the most awful moment, when Fonny has to rise and turn, I have to rise and turn. But Fonny is cool. He stands, and raises his fist. He smiles and stands there for a moment, looking me dead in the eye. Something travels from him to me, it is love and courage. Yes. Yes. We are going to make it somehow. Somehow. I stand, and smile, and raise my fist. He turns toward the inferno. I walk toward the Sahara.
The motif of the Sahara shows how often Tish thinks of the desert as a representation for her life. This final instance, then, shows Tish's growing strength and maturity in the novel. Tish brings herself to cross the desert again and again, surviving through an unjust world for Fonny and her baby. The reader sees that struggle multiple times, and by the end, "somehow," she perseveres and walks "toward the Sahara."
Related Themes:
