A word, phrase, or image that returns several times throughout the work, tied to a character or an idea, and gains meaning with each return.
In The Idiot
And if Schneider himself came now from Switzerland to see his former pupil and patient, he too, remembering the state the prince sometimes fell into during the first year of treatment in Switzerland, would now make a gesture of dismay and say, as he did back then: "Idiot!"
The word “Idiot!” closes the book with the same insult and the same diagnosis that have followed him since the first chapter. The final repetition makes the word a motif of the novel, not a simple insult.