The Moral of the Story Keith: The moral of the story-there's a judgment as to the "goodness" or "badness" of the character or of any of the characters in the plot or whatever the case may be. So there's a judgment-a moral judgment-on the value of the individual. Theme is a recurrent idea that runs throughout a story. The easiest example, the easiest theme is good versus evil, okay? So 99.9 percent of Hollywood movies are made based on that theme. It's perhaps the most simplistic and abundant theme in any sort of literature or movie that we digest nowadays. So with that in mind, when you read a short story-actually I'll back up. Theme, quite frequently, is one of the most difficult things that students face when they're reading stories. And quite frequently, students will fall into assuming that theme is a moral or the moral of the story. And the moral of the story is actually not what theme is. And some stories are written with theme in mind. Some stories are written and a theme emerges from it, and that's part of the problem with determining what the theme is, because some authors will write a story with absolutely no theme in mind whatsoever, while others will write specifically to that theme. Now, I think I already know what David's answer to this is, but when you read a story, do you pick a theme out? Can you easily pick a theme out from a story? Just think back to anything you might have read in the past, you know, month. Is there a story you can actually identify by a specific theme?
David: My first inclination is to say that a theme is-I mean, when you read a story, it's wholly subjective what you think that theme is and what that theme is saying to you. It depends upon your age-What you bring to the book is what you will derive from the theme. I think that most books that I've read that I've loved, that do have-that are not intentionally written without a theme, the ones that do have a theme-are often simply that: good versus evil. Emile Zola's La Bete Humaine, about murder and, of course, death, and the way small acts of evil grow like a cancer and attack that person and destroy his life. Other themes-of freedom, for instance-The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kozinski, it's a very beautiful story about this young Gypsy boy escaping the Nazis, and that's a story of freedom. I suppose it would be hard to misinterpret the theme in that particular story; but from that, if that story didn't have a theme of freedom, there wouldn't be a story at all, so in a sense the most important part was that theme of freedom and liberty-there's a price for that and you have to work for that. I read that at about age 12, and it made a huge impression on me. So in that sense I think theme can be universally derived, but it can also be very subjective.
Jill: I don't know. Again, I think that generally we encounter the good versus evil theme, there's usually a protagonist who's trying to achieve something and the antagonist who's trying to stop him from achieving that. I don't really think about theme when I'm reading; it doesn't really cross my mind. I guess it's just there, and maybe subconsciously I'm thinking about it, but I never give it a second thought, really. I just-read. [laughter] Keith: Yes, most students read, and most people for that matter-never mind students-teachers themselves read without even taking into consideration why. Why, then? Here's a question to pose for you: Why, then, do you think it is important for a student to be able to determine what the theme is in a story? If it's not obvious, if it's not striking and within the plot, why do you think it's important? Why do teachers like their students to try and discover or figure out what the theme is in a story?
David: I suspect that is the one part of the book that you need to bring to the book itself. The book gives you the characters, it gives you the plot, gives you the setting. You need to find that theme yourself. It's the creative process in your own mind that you bring to the work and you find that theme, and it says as much about you as it says about the book. I suppose that is the creative work in reading a book. It's easy to read the words, understand the characters, know their names, know where it takes place, but to find out what it's all about-What is going on here? Why are they doing this? To what end? That's the work that is required of the student, and even if a student struggles to find it, and even if a student finds a theme that isn't there, or struggles to find a theme that is completely incorrect, I still think it's a creative process that's worth the undertaking. Keith: Congratulations, David, you got an A! [laughter] Jill: I was just going to say that. It's the one thing that the students really have to think about. It's just not written right in front of them, it's getting them to think and to reflect and to kind of analyze and just not- Keith: Yes, you're both correct. It forces a student to do the proverbial "reading between the lines." I mean, it's important for the reader to read for content and read for understanding, but it's also for higher-level thinking, important for a reader to be able to determine those things that aren't obvious to them and bring to it, as David said, their own interpretation, their own version of what's going on.
