by MarQuese Liddle

Discussions of literature are often obscured by the very words meant to describe the mutually experienced phenomena resultant from the reading and analysis of fiction. Perhaps the most vague and polymorphous of these words is theme—for good reason, of course; but nonetheless, an ill-defined term serves little purpose to someone who seeks to know rather than to merely believe—that is to be owned by the ghosts of dead men’s ideas. The question posed: what is theme, and how do we know? Taken from three separate literature texts, theme is described as:

The main idea or larger meaning of a work of literature. A theme may be a message or a moral, but it is more likely to be a central, unifying insight or viewpoint. (Kennedy & Gioia 233)

A general idea or insight conveyed by the work in its entirety.…Theme [is not] fiction’s point in the sense of its sole ‘objective’ or ‘purpose.’ Yet theme is a fictional work’s point in the sense of its ‘essential meaning[(s)]’. (Mays 184)

Theme is what the story is about on an abstract level, those generalized issues dramatized in or embodied by the characters and action.…A story’s meaning is what it has to say about its theme(s). (Kelly XXVIII-XXIX)

Where these definitions agree is in their consistent use of “main idea” or “general idea” or “insight” as a means of describing what theme is—that is, an idea larger or more general than the literal or denotative interpretation of a text. In other words, they all acknowledge that theme is a form of order-abstraction from first order (the literal reading) to second order (the deeper meaning). Where these definitions disagree, they do so in their conceptions of the purpose or function of theme. Kennedy & Gioia ascribe the purpose of theme to be that of a moral—that is, to teach a lesson—but only sometimes, while in other instances theme’s function is to show a unified insight. Mays overlaps with the Kennedy & Gioia insofar as they both conceive of theme as “meaning,” but deviates from the co-authors/editors by divorcing theme from having a purpose or function at all. Kelly makes this separation as well, though a second term, “meaning,” is brought in to fill the inevitable void.

The disagreement across these definitions is indicative of an imprecise definition. All three author/editors have accurately identified that theme is an abstraction of some kind from the literal reading of the text. However, none of them have actually described what kind of abstraction theme is, nor have they drawn tight bounds around what theme is not—in Mays’s case, attempts were made, but the language is vague as to be easily interpreted in contradictory ways. If one is to have a working definition of theme, or better said, a definition which works for the reader, then he or she must contain within that definition the form (boundaries that constitute a thing), source (that which can be referenced in a valid interpretation), and function (what a thing does or is designed to do).

To get at the form of what theme actually is, it is useful to follow the etymological origins of the word. At a cursory glance, one will find roots in both Latin thema—a subject; a thesis—and in Greek théma—proposition; subject; deposit; literally to set down an object. Notice in both these words the commonalities. Both can mean a general subject, and both mean a proposition (i.e. assertion, claim, argument, or thesis). The latter of the two meanings is more constraining and is therefore more precise. This is what we need if we are to make useful our definition of theme. If we leave our definition too broad as to be more or maximally inclusive, as it is now, we will not be capable from discerning theme from our interpretations-of-theme, nor from our interpretations of symbol or even plot structure (As an aside, this is true of all things. You define a concept or object not by what it is, but by what it is that other things are not).

So now one has a form: theme as thesis in second order abstraction, yet we are still lacking source and function. The source of theme, fortunately, is a less than controversial subject—unless one ascribes to an ideology which rejects the objective existence of the work of literature itself in the style of Roland Barthes’s The Death of the Author. But assuming that a work is constituted of text on a page or screen, composed in a certain language as understood by the speakers and readers of that language at that time, the source can only be the body of a written work itself. What parts of the body? The answer lies in the form of our definition, specifically the focus on second-order abstraction, e.g. the symbols present in a piece of literature and those symbols’ interactions or discourses with one another. That, however, is not a simple answer. Symbolism is a complicated topic warranting an essay all to itself, so for the purpose of this analysis, one is forced to assert a working definition. Therefore, let symbols be the second (sometimes third) order abstraction or connotation of a denotation present within the body of a work of literature. This definition includes within its scope symbolic objects, characters, actions, plot events, setting, and tone (all of which are present in both fiction and nonfiction).

Returning to the point at present, theme arises from the interaction among symbols within a literary work. This makes theme a kind of meta-symbol, or what the symbols symbolize together in the context of the narrative. This meta-symbol, assuming that the individual symbols have been properly interpreted, can be read coherently, just as the original narrative can. It is in this way that a work of literature births what could be called a meta-narrative—a thesis of second and/or third order abstraction whose argument is embodied in literal narrative from which it was interpreted.

This moves the conversation to the final definition-content-requirement, that being the function of theme in a written work. As was true in regard to source, this aspect too follows naturally from the priorly established aspects. Put simply, the purpose or function of a theme is the making and supporting of an argument or claim via the meta-narrative—but these terms and explicit arguments are likely insufficient for a reader to understand (hence the need for narrative in the first place). Therefore, an example is warranted.

Consider Aesop’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare”: Likely, a reader is already aware of the moral (read as ‘claim’ or ‘argument) of this story. Pretending for a moment that one has never been taught, the question becomes, “How does one interpret the theme?” The process is just what has been described up to this point. One must reference the text (source), specifically examining the second and third order abstractions (form) and how those abstractions, or symbols, interact. In the case of this example: there is a tortoise—something slow and plodding by nature, a hare—something quick and spontaneous by nature, and a race—a competition with an identified goal far in the distance. As the story goes, the hare, due to his arrogance and reliance on his innate talents, decides to take a nap mid-race and thereby loses to the tortoise who, though less innately talented than the hare, moves consistently and stalwartly toward the goal. The theme, therefore is, “Consistency and effort will lead to success in the end versus innate talent without the proper dedication and humility.” And there, too, lies the function, to convince the reader that the statement of theme is in fact true in that generally articulated sense.

Now recall, all this is for but a single purpose—to usefully define and thereby utilize and interpret theme. As can be seen, doing so in a single sentence (or even a single page) is to do the term a disservice, and even if it were not, what would most readers do with a definition such as, “Theme is the thesis, or argument, of a narrative work, embedded in symbols, and discernable only by summarizing the discourses among those aforementioned symbols in an explicit truth-claim?”

Works Cited

Kelly, Joseph. The Seagull Book of Stories. fourth edition. W.W. Norton & Company. 2017.

Kennedy, X.J. & Dana Gioia. Literature: an introduction to Fiction, Drama, and Writing. thirteenth edition. Pearson. 2016.

Mays, Kelly J.. The Norton Introduction to Literature. portable 13th edition. W.W. Norton & Company. 2020.