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The article is devoted to the recurrence of the same motifs in the creative oeuvre of Michel de Ghelderode over the whole period of his literary career. The analysis focuses on the recurrence and evolution of two characters in the dramatic works of the Belgian playwright. The first part of the article charts the evolution of the motif of the resurrection of a dead girl: the writer recollects a story, told by his mother in his childhood, to recreate his own stage version of the Biblical resurrection of Jair's daughter. The second part deals with the motif of the battleaxe and her literary path in Ghelderode's dramatic works, from a duplicitous gossip through a lecherous plain girl to a shrew, whose story is riddled with elements of the Belgian founding myth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]