Discrimination, Cruelty and Xenophobia
These motifs help to develop the theme of Strong vs. Weak as well as Predation.
Examples:
Fog, Mist, Smoke, and Clouds (Obscurity)
This motif develops the ideas of change and the unknown, two large parts of the human experience.
Examples:
Distrust
The motif of Distrust falls in line with human instinct, emboldening both the Strong vs. Weak theme as well as Predation. Distrust complicates relationships and adds to the previous motif of obscurity.
Examples:
Falling
The motif Falling directly supports the theme of Ascent and Descent. It is common throughout Cloud Atlas to see falling or descent as a sort of catalyst or pivotal point within in a character’s story.
Examples:
Six
The number six is recurrent throughout Cloud Atlas and is representative of the number of stories.
Examples:
Birds
Birds are depicted all throughout Cloud Atlas and help to develop the theme of Imprisonment by calling to mind just the opposite: Freedom.
Examples:
These motifs help to develop the theme of Strong vs. Weak as well as Predation.
Examples:
- Autua is flogged and Adam notes his back is, “hoarfroasted with many harsh years.” (6)
- Timothy is beaten by Withers. (177)
- Seer Rhee was “a whipman to his fabricants.” (187)
- “Watch where you’re standin’, you democratin’ clone!” (201)
- “He addressed me like purebloods speak to a cat.” (208)
- “Crack! Went a whip, an’ Pa’n’Adam was topsied an’ lay wrigglyin’ like eels on the sand.” (241)
- A pureblood tossed a fabricant doll off a bridge to her death. (334)
- Fabricants are doomed from their wombtanks. (343)
- Bill Smoke shoots a dog. (424)
- “Not a soul, not a dog, not even a Native, stirred the Sabbath stillness.” (481)
- “Daniel! I know you hear me! I’ll lash you!” (484)
- The initiation of “Crossing the Line.” (493)
- "Cruelty has never made me smile." (494)
- A shark was hoisted aboard and “it writhed in its own ruby juices for a considerable amount of time before Guernsey declared it well and truly dead.” (494)
Fog, Mist, Smoke, and Clouds (Obscurity)
This motif develops the ideas of change and the unknown, two large parts of the human experience.
Examples:
- “Opaque mists haunt” the Chatham Isles. (18)
- Adam fell at the foggy summit of Conical Tor. (19)
- “Smog obscures the stars...” (89)
- Seaboard’s sneaky assassin is called Bill Smoke.
- “The mirror mists over.” (122)
- Sixsmith orders a, “One-way, business class... nonsmoking,” plane ticket. Bill Smoke will later kill him. (110)
- “Her face clouds over.” (124)
- Cavendish took “a puff off a sinister cigar,” (175) that blurred his memory.
- “Smoking is discouraged here.” (174)
- “Glass walls afforded a dizzying view of the conrub by night, obscured by the haze-brite snowfall.” (217)
- There were thick clouds atop Mauna Kea. (260)
- “A waxy mist hid our campfire.” (272)
- “This woman only saved Catkin’s life to cloudy your thinkin’...” (277)
- “... a smoky dead end.” (286)
- “Blissweed was fogging’ me still, an’ I heard near-far shouts o’ wild partyin’ tho’ a mist dawn was ‘ready up.” (288)
- “Fog turned ev’ry tree stump into a huddled Kona sentry.” (297)
- "I suggested the colony must prosper in invisibility, in obscurity." (332)
- “Exxon clouds” surround the Pusan refinery. (336)
- “My mind shambled in fog...” (354)
- “Fog thickened and thinned in the headlight beams.” (381)
- “He’s trying to make a smokescreen.” (410)
- “... sea mist and commuter smog...” (414)
- “Smoke still spills in senseless quantities.” (422)
- “Ayrs in bed for three days, fogged with morphine, calling out in pain.” (439)
- “So thick was the smoke within” the Nazareth Smoking School. (481)
- “Then I took a turn about the decks, but the Star of David was obscured by thick clouds.” (497)
Distrust
The motif of Distrust falls in line with human instinct, emboldening both the Strong vs. Weak theme as well as Predation. Distrust complicates relationships and adds to the previous motif of obscurity.
Examples:
- Adam initially disliked Henry Goose. (4)
- Luisa doesn’t trust Fay Li. (108)
- Zachary doesn’t trust the Prescients. (258)
- “Henry accepted with enthusiasm and I did not withhold my consent, though I mistrusted the old raccoon’s motivations.” (476)
- "People of shifting character unnerve me and Mr. Wagstaff was one such." (491)
Falling
The motif Falling directly supports the theme of Ascent and Descent. It is common throughout Cloud Atlas to see falling or descent as a sort of catalyst or pivotal point within in a character’s story.
Examples:
- Adam fell down the Conical Tor. (19)
- Felix Finch fell over a balcony. (150)
- “The pieces fell into place. I fell into pieces.” (153)
- Denholm remarks, “I’m the mighty fallen, you’re the miniscule fallen,” to Tim. (158)
- Sonmi read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. (218)
- Ol’ Georgie tripped Zachry. (240)
- Civilization’s collapse is termed "the Fall.” (245)
- “We Old Uns was sick with Smart an’ the Fall was our cure.” (279)
- Meronym almost fell off of Mauna Kea. (281)
- “Another kssss an’ the boy Kona was felled.” (292)
- “... an’ if Hilo ain’t fallen yet, it’ll fall soon.” (294)
- The fabricant doll fell to her death. (334)
- “I can only squeal, like Peter Rabbit tossed off a Salisbury Cathedral’s spire,” (353)
- Cavendish fell after he heard that Denholm was dead. (364)
- “Ernie’s plan was a high-risk sequence of toppling dominoes.” (374)
- “The intervening years did not fall away as I had hoped.” (378)
- “Luisa’s abductor grunts and falls forward.” (422)
- “A tile slid out and crashed down to the gravel walk below.” (458)
- “Working nights on Cloud Atlas Sextet until I drop, quite literally, no other way to get off to sleep.” (460)
- “On the beach of Bethlehem Cove we fought and some of us fell.” (478)
Six
The number six is recurrent throughout Cloud Atlas and is representative of the number of stories.
Examples:
- Robert composes a Sextet.
- Sixsmith is sixty-six years old. (89)
- Cavendish’s story started “six summers ago.” (146)
- The fabricants recite the “Six Catechisms.” (186)
- “To enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford.” (187)
- Sonmi became aware of Yoona’s irregular speech “around month six” of her first year. (188)
- “Who decided Papa Song’s Investment took twelve years to repay? Why not eleven? Six? One?” (192)
- “By sixmonth I completed xec secondary school.” (208)
- There is a Sextet Eve and a Sextet Recess at Sonmi’s University.
- Zachry was sixteen when he met Meronym. (249)
- Meronym was to stay with the Valleysmen for six moons. (250)
- The Mauna Kea trek was to take six days. (270)
- Union planned to simultaneous ascend six million fabricants.
- “A number six. November 6. I’ve awoken here before.” (353)
- “Six feet directly beneath his seat is a suitcase in the baggage hold containing enough C-4 to turn an airplane into a meteor.” (392)
- Joe Napier was “a cop for six years” when Lester saved his life. (398)
- "Oaks live for six hundred years. Two hundred to grow, two hundred to live, two hundred to die." (402)
- “The store owner greets his customer by name and delivers six months’ gossip in as many minutes.” (411)
- “Awake, again, parched, with a beer-swollen bladder. Fifth time now or sixth?” (412)
- “Only a popgun. Six shots. C’mon.” (425)
- “A war cry from six yards away: ‘Hands in the air!’” (426)
- Mrs. Derbyshire was “a widow well into her sixth decade.” (487)
- The Prophetess spotted a pod of six whales. (495)
Birds
Birds are depicted all throughout Cloud Atlas and help to develop the theme of Imprisonment by calling to mind just the opposite: Freedom.
Examples:
- Adam Ewing, Dr. Goose, Swannekke, Felix Finch, Wing-027, and Dr. Egret all are bird associated names.
- D’Arnoq’s congregation is described as a “demonic flock.” (8)
- “On the wings of sweet, free publicity, my Knuckle Sandwich turkey soared up the bestseller charts, where it roosted until poor Dermot was sentenced.” (151)
- “Culture vultures.” (151)
- “Thus I first encountered birds... For whom did the sing?” (205)
- “... instant bird’s nest soup...” (227)
- Sonmi’s orison was contained in a silvery egg. (263)
- Meronym “used hole flocks o’ words” that Zachry didn’t know. (268)
- “Eerie birds I din’t knowed yibbered news in the dark.” (272)
- “Birds was rarer too in then sheer’n’scrubby slopes, jus’ buzzards surfin’ high.” (273)
- “... but she jus’ sighed lornsomer’n a bird in a box in a well.” (274)
- “Yay, the dark wings o’ that dreadsome word beat furyin’ thru Honokaa...” (288)
- “I weren’t nothin’ jus’ achin’ an’ helpless as a strung-up lardbird bein’ bled from a hook.” (289)
- “My fellow inmates fell silent, like songbirds under the shadow of a hawk.” (355)
- “An Eagles song comes on a radio behind the counter.” (396)
- “A blackbird sings.” (413)
- Frobisher and Morty Dhondt hit and kill a pheasant. (442)
- “That snotty duckling who left Zedelghem three months ago has returned as a most graceful swan.” (447)
- “Thanks for your anxious letter but why the clucking Mother Goose?” (460)