Motifs In Alice Hoffman's The River King

“Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt,” said the historical Roman playwright, Plautus. A motif is a recurring narrative element, such as a pattern or symbol. Authors often use motifs to reveal an underlying theme of the literature or symbolize a specific character or idea. Alice Hoffman utilizes the motif of minnows in her book “The River King” to reveal that Carlin had to let go of her guilt to overcome the grief of losing Gus.

When Gus died, Carlin felt that she was at fault because they had been in a fight before his death, and this led to extreme feelings of guilt eating her alive every day. These feelings gave her the urge to self-sabotage, and her life went to pieces. Carlin didn’t know that she wasn’t at fault for what happened to Gus, and to overcome the grief and get her life back, she needed to see the truth in how she died so she wouldn’t

She can move on with her life after previously thinking she was “the cause” of his death. Hoffman states, “In the height of the fine weather, Carlin began swimming in the river at the hour when the light was pale and green….. The fish had grown used to her, and they swam alongside her, all the way home” (Hoffman 300). Carlin has finally accepted what happened to Gus, and this is emphasized by the way that the fish “swam alongside her''. In the past, the fish would always try to reveal a message to Carlin. However, now that Carlin no longer feels guilty about Gus’s death, the minnows don’t have a message to tell her. She has realized what she needed to do, and now the minnows are just there to continue the connection between her and Gus, so they just keep her company by swimming with her. Once Carlin was finally able to let go of her self-proclaimed guilt, she moved on with her life after being held back by grief, as shown by the use of minnows in this