When an image recurs in a story to carry a theme, should it return unchanged or varied?

Two period craft sources agree that a recurring image works when it returns with variation and fails when it is only repeated: Freeburg (1923) says each repetition should vary in approach or circumstance, and Forster (1927) defines the effect as "repetition plus variation". Freeburg's documented example is the Z mark in The Mark of Zorro (scar, bulletin board, neck, brow; sword motion in later ones); a cinematographer's 2025 account describes red intensifying across a thriller. Inversion (an image returning with opposite meaning) is not named in any passage read. Curator qualifications: Curator located the evidence excerpts in the work copies (automated prefix match; the one apparent miss, S25-05 E4, is a curly-apostrophe variant and is present). Repetition-with-variation is well supported by both sources; the exact-repeat nuance (Intolerance cradle) is kept. Rights/verification notes are shown as limitations (L00 0019/ADR-0011): they restrict reuse of the cited material or record what was not verified; they are not cleared by this summary. Limitations: [component_reuse_restriction] Forster's Aspects of the Novel is read from Project Gutenberg (title page 'COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY'). Gutenberg's licence statement covers US use; status elsewhere was not verified. Short attributed quotes only. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/66049/66049-h/66049-h.htm",
      "note": "Pictorial Beauty of the Photoplay (1923); ch. VIII"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70492/70492-h/70492-h.htm",
      "note": "Pictorial Beauty of the Photoplay (1923); ch. VIII"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/features/interviews/sookshmadarshini-cinematographer-sharan-velayudhan-on-using-windows-as-a-metaphor-for-the-eye",
      "note": "Pictorial Beauty of the Photoplay (1923); ch. VIII"
    }
  ]
}