Thus, all the themes in a piece can be tied back to a single motive in the work.

What he had uncovered instead was a single horrifying motive to explain why it had been done at all.

Not only had she been unable to discover a single viable motive, she'd found no one who hadn't adored the victim.

And I couldn't come up with a single motive for murder.

I want it to be a single person with a single motive.

No single motive explains why a given woman would seek to bear a child for another couple.

There is no single motive for the deals this year, analysts said.

No incidence of violence stems from a simple cause, or a single motive.

The whole work is based on one single basic motive, from which all themes are developed.

The first seven are dirgelike works developed from a single motive.