Recurring Themes and Motifs

Recurring themes and motifs are themselves a recurring theme and motif in the novel, suggesting that life itself is like a work of art in which repeating images and ideas occur to different people in different places without any logical process of cause and effect. Although the author does not explicitly use religious connotations to explain this phenomenon, the suggestion that recurring themes and motifs in the lives of disparate people is part of some higher divine order is made through Chapter 10 during which the Monkey God presides over the events of the novel, predicting the future for the characters from an abstract location.

Further to this, Eleanor reflects on her personal religious beliefs in a way that echoes the novel’s attitude to recurring themes and motifs as a whole, while mulling over the coincidence of Leonard Marber being her patient in...