Answer:
A motif expands on a story's main idea or topic. The chest is crucial to "The Brown Chest." From childhood to adulthood and old age, the narrator's thoughts on the old chest shift. The antique chest represents death and decay to the narrator as a child. He doesn't want to inspect the chest and its contents. The chest went down and down, into the past, and he despised the sense of that well of time, with its wonderful deep smell of things unstirring, waiting, and becoming moldy unless touched. As an adult, he becomes interested in the chest's family history. The chest's contents help him grasp his family's past. He and his younger son rummaged through blankets, plush albums, lace tablecloths, and linen napkins; they discovered a long cardboard box labeled "Wedding Dress 1925" and, beneath it, rumpled silk dresses that a small girl might have worn when the century was young; patent-leather baby shoes; a gold-plated horseshoe; and faithful weather notations kept by his grandfather's father. A little box labeled "Haircut July 1919" contained coils of silky auburn hair. As the narrator's son prepares to marry and start a family, he considers the relevance of preserving these treasures for future generations. Delicately but courageously, she removed the lid, and out swooped the sweetish deep cedary smell, undiminished, cedar, camphor, paper, and cloth, the smell of family, family without end.
Explanation:
This is my point-of-view, and you are welcome to alter it to your take on it.
