relation between thesis statement and theme

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Theme vs. Thesis: Key Differences and How to Write each

• by Judy Jeni
• January 18, 2024

Many students confuse between these two terms, a theme and a thesis. In practice, they are two distinct aspects.

By reading the content in this write-up, you will appreciate the difference between the two items. A theme is a central message in a text, whereas a thesis is an argument about a text.

Theme vs. Thesis

While it is possible to write items based on a theme or a project based on a thesis, the two are different. While their focus may seem similar, they are different.

A theme is a focus topic that a writer bases his argument on. It is the direction that guides the points that a writer argues. On the other hand, a thesis is a stand that a writer seeks to prove in his or her writing.

In a theme, a writer bases points on a concept, but in a thesis, the writer writes to prove a specific assertion.

A theme and a thesis are two different items that we can elaborate through the following points:  

• A theme is the crucial idea of the piece of literature or any art you are writing about.
• It is the recurrent idea in your work before you identify other elements such as characters, conflict, setting, and plot.
• A thesis is a statement that you will try to prove by backing it with necessary facts. It is a position that the author takes to maintain a particular argument.

Differences between a Theme and a Thesis

• A theme is the general topic of your essay, whereas a thesis is the precise statements that the author tries to prove.
• A theme could be more general as the writer cannot necessarily state it expressly. On the other hand, a thesis is a direct message at the beginning of the paragraph that indicates what the entire paper will be talking about.
• A theme is the motif of the piece or an underlying idea, whereas the thesis is the argument in favor of something that you believe you are presenting to your audience.

How to Write a Theme Based Essay

A theme-based essay writes about something based on a theme that you can derive from a novel, song, or short story. Before you begin to write such an essay, you should identify the underlying theme in your literature work.

Steps When Writing a Theme Based Essay

1. identify the character.

One should locate the characters that you will discuss in the essay. Such should relate to the identified theme in your essay.

For instance, if you locate ‘violence’ in the novel ‘The Shadow of Death,’ it is reasonable to talk about the characters that promote violence in the novel.

2. Maintain the Chosen Theme

As indicated above, suppose violence is the main theme in the novel, then you should maintain the same thing by writing about violence.  Such could include incidences of violence, including blood baths and more.

The point is you should endeavor to remain as close to the theme of violence by highlighting incidences and situations from the novel, drama, or story.

3. Avoid Mixing the Theme with the Key Subject

A theme is not a plot but an idea that binds up the story. It is the message that the author wants to convey to the audience or the readers. It is, therefore, wrong to try to write on the plot or story. Stick to the idea only.

Let your thoughts remain organized and well-knitted in the essay body. In the same vein, the body should relate to the central theme as you refer to the characters and incidents in the source matter.

How to Write a Thesis

One can use the following steps to come up with a strong thesis statement:

Start with a Question

One should come up with a question in case the assignment did not offer the question.

After that, you should state your topic, which is the essential idea of the paper.

This thesis statement is usually a phrase or a few words that summarize the main subject of your paper.

The thesis statement makes the topic to be as precise as possible.

Write an Initial Answer

After performing initial research, it is now time to formulate a tentative answer. At this point, it could be just simple, or you can craft it to guide the process of writing and researching.

In case you are writing an argumentative essay, your answer should take a position on the matter. This is different from a thesis statement. Check more about thesis statements to know the idea of the two.

Develop the Answer

This section should prove why you believe it is your answer and convince the reader to agree with your position.

The more you write about the topic, the more you develop more details for your response. The final essay should summarize your overall arguments.

One should know what they are trying to prove in a topic. While you are expressing your opinion, it is vital to state one major idea. Also, you should name the topic and state something specific about it.

Furthermore, you should take a position and back it up with facts and reasons as an author. It is vital to support your reasons with evidence and logical facts.

Include Opposing Viewpoint

The correct thesis statement should acknowledge that there is another side of the argument. It is excellent to include your opposing viewpoints in your opinion. It is also essential to capture another person’s view who may have a different opinion about your topic.

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Writing Tutorial Services

How to write a thesis statement, what is a thesis statement.

Almost all of us—even if we don’t do it consciously—look early in an essay for a one- or two-sentence condensation of the argument or analysis that is to follow. We refer to that condensation as a thesis statement.

Why Should Your Essay Contain a Thesis Statement?

• to test your ideas by distilling them into a sentence or two
• to better organize and develop your argument
• to provide your reader with a “guide” to your argument

In general, your thesis statement will accomplish these goals if you think of the thesis as the answer to the question your paper explores.

How Can You Write a Good Thesis Statement?

Here are some helpful hints to get you started. You can either scroll down or select a link to a specific topic.

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned

Almost all assignments, no matter how complicated, can be reduced to a single question. Your first step, then, is to distill the assignment into a specific question. For example, if your assignment is, “Write a report to the local school board explaining the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class,” turn the request into a question like, “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” After you’ve chosen the question your essay will answer, compose one or two complete sentences answering that question.

Q: “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” A: “The potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class are . . .”

A: “Using computers in a fourth-grade class promises to improve . . .”

The answer to the question is the thesis statement for the essay.

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How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned

Even if your assignment doesn’t ask a specific question, your thesis statement still needs to answer a question about the issue you’d like to explore. In this situation, your job is to figure out what question you’d like to write about.

A good thesis statement will usually include the following four attributes:

• take on a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree
• deal with a subject that can be adequately treated given the nature of the assignment
• express one main idea
• assert your conclusions about a subject

Let’s see how to generate a thesis statement for a social policy paper.

Brainstorm the topic . Let’s say that your class focuses upon the problems posed by changes in the dietary habits of Americans. You find that you are interested in the amount of sugar Americans consume.

You start out with a thesis statement like this:

Sugar consumption.

This fragment isn’t a thesis statement. Instead, it simply indicates a general subject. Furthermore, your reader doesn’t know what you want to say about sugar consumption.

Narrow the topic . Your readings about the topic, however, have led you to the conclusion that elementary school children are consuming far more sugar than is healthy.

You change your thesis to look like this:

Reducing sugar consumption by elementary school children.

This fragment not only announces your subject, but it focuses on one segment of the population: elementary school children. Furthermore, it raises a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree, because while most people might agree that children consume more sugar than they used to, not everyone would agree on what should be done or who should do it. You should note that this fragment is not a thesis statement because your reader doesn’t know your conclusions on the topic.

Take a position on the topic. After reflecting on the topic a little while longer, you decide that what you really want to say about this topic is that something should be done to reduce the amount of sugar these children consume.

You revise your thesis statement to look like this:

More attention should be paid to the food and beverage choices available to elementary school children.

This statement asserts your position, but the terms more attention and food and beverage choices are vague.

Use specific language . You decide to explain what you mean about food and beverage choices , so you write:

Experts estimate that half of elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar.

This statement is specific, but it isn’t a thesis. It merely reports a statistic instead of making an assertion.

Make an assertion based on clearly stated support. You finally revise your thesis statement one more time to look like this:

Because half of all American elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar, schools should be required to replace the beverages in soda machines with healthy alternatives.

Notice how the thesis answers the question, “What should be done to reduce sugar consumption by children, and who should do it?” When you started thinking about the paper, you may not have had a specific question in mind, but as you became more involved in the topic, your ideas became more specific. Your thesis changed to reflect your new insights.

How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

1. a strong thesis statement takes some sort of stand..

Remember that your thesis needs to show your conclusions about a subject. For example, if you are writing a paper for a class on fitness, you might be asked to choose a popular weight-loss product to evaluate. Here are two thesis statements:

There are some negative and positive aspects to the Banana Herb Tea Supplement.

This is a weak thesis statement. First, it fails to take a stand. Second, the phrase negative and positive aspects is vague.

Because Banana Herb Tea Supplement promotes rapid weight loss that results in the loss of muscle and lean body mass, it poses a potential danger to customers.

This is a strong thesis because it takes a stand, and because it's specific.

2. A strong thesis statement justifies discussion.

Your thesis should indicate the point of the discussion. If your assignment is to write a paper on kinship systems, using your own family as an example, you might come up with either of these two thesis statements:

My family is an extended family.

This is a weak thesis because it merely states an observation. Your reader won’t be able to tell the point of the statement, and will probably stop reading.

While most American families would view consanguineal marriage as a threat to the nuclear family structure, many Iranian families, like my own, believe that these marriages help reinforce kinship ties in an extended family.

This is a strong thesis because it shows how your experience contradicts a widely-accepted view. A good strategy for creating a strong thesis is to show that the topic is controversial. Readers will be interested in reading the rest of the essay to see how you support your point.

3. A strong thesis statement expresses one main idea.

Readers need to be able to see that your paper has one main point. If your thesis statement expresses more than one idea, then you might confuse your readers about the subject of your paper. For example:

Companies need to exploit the marketing potential of the Internet, and Web pages can provide both advertising and customer support.

This is a weak thesis statement because the reader can’t decide whether the paper is about marketing on the Internet or Web pages. To revise the thesis, the relationship between the two ideas needs to become more clear. One way to revise the thesis would be to write:

Because the Internet is filled with tremendous marketing potential, companies should exploit this potential by using Web pages that offer both advertising and customer support.

This is a strong thesis because it shows that the two ideas are related. Hint: a great many clear and engaging thesis statements contain words like because , since , so , although , unless , and however .

4. A strong thesis statement is specific.

A thesis statement should show exactly what your paper will be about, and will help you keep your paper to a manageable topic. For example, if you're writing a seven-to-ten page paper on hunger, you might say:

World hunger has many causes and effects.

This is a weak thesis statement for two major reasons. First, world hunger can’t be discussed thoroughly in seven to ten pages. Second, many causes and effects is vague. You should be able to identify specific causes and effects. A revised thesis might look like this:

Hunger persists in Glandelinia because jobs are scarce and farming in the infertile soil is rarely profitable.

This is a strong thesis statement because it narrows the subject to a more specific and manageable topic, and it also identifies the specific causes for the existence of hunger.

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AP Literature - Theme Statements and Thesis Statements

september 26, 2019

Candace Moore

Using the collective annotation of a poem, theme was defined and discussed, and a format was given for students to always be able to create a thematic statement. Then, given a prompt, thesis statements were discussed and established for the same poem, highlighting the difference between thematic statements and thesis statements, especially in the AP context.

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From Topic to Thesis

Tisha turk, women’s studies 101.

A well-constructed thesis statement helps hold an essay together by showing the reader where the paper is going to go. It defines not just a paper’s topic but its argument, and introduces the kinds of evidence or mode of reasoning that will be used to back up that argument. It does not merely summarize the points that will be made; rather, it shows the relationship between those points. A thesis may need to be more than one sentence in order to do all these things; it may turn out to be a “thesis cluster” rather than a “thesis statement.”

As we all know, “construct an argument” is easier said than done. Many papers merely describe texts in the introduction rather than articulating a specific thesis that makes an argument about those texts. Sometimes the paper simply hasn’t foregrounded an argument that shows up elsewhere in the paper. Sometimes the paper makes lots of good individual points without figuring out the relationship between those points, so that the thesis is more like a list than an argument.

In order for us to examine what an argument actually looks like and look at some ways we can push on a topic to get to one, I’ve provided a couple of sample take-home essay prompts and a series of increasingly specific thesis statements or clusters (based on past student essays) addressing those questions. I’ve included some commentary on each sample thesis so you can get a sense of what kinds of questions (mostly “why?” and “how?”) I ask when I’m reading.

Example: Assignment #1

Analyze hooks and any other two authors we’ve read in terms of their use of the concept of denaturalization. What behaviors or beliefs do they denaturalize, and what specifically do they hope to accomplish by doing so? You may also consider negative examples, in which an author fails to denaturalize a behavior or belief that is historically or culturally situated.

• hooks, Mackler, and Sepanski all address the issue of denaturalization.

Well, yeah. The question assumes that the concept is relevant to some of our readings. I need to see the paper make a claim about the essays in relation to the concept.

• hooks is successful at denaturalizing certain behaviors; Mackler and Sepanski are not.

Okay, this is starting to look more like a thesis; there’s a claim being made about the authors’ success at doing the denaturalization thing. But I want more specificity: what are the “certain behaviors” being denaturalized?

• While hooks successfully denaturalizes the idea of women as inherently non-violent in her essay “Feminism and Militarism: A Comment,” Carolyn Mackler’s essay “Memoirs of a (Sorta) Ex-Shaver” fails to denaturalize the idea that women are hairless, just as Diane Sepanski’s essay “The Skinny on Small” fails to denaturalize the idea that women are quiet.

Much better, because now I know what the issues are that we’re going to be discussing. But: what are the criteria for “successful denaturalization”?

• Using hooks’ argument that “the personal is political,” denaturalization should be seen as a complex process that involves acknowledging the stereotyped behavior, personally overcoming it, and, ultimately, collectively resisting the stereotyped behavior in the political arena. While hooks successfully denaturalizes the idea of women as inherently non-violent in her essay “feminism and militarism: a comment,” Carolyn Mackler’s essay “Memoirs of a (Sorta) Ex-Shaver” fails to denaturalize the idea that women are hairless, just as Diane Sepanski’s essay “The Skinny on Small” fails to denaturalize the idea that women are quiet. Aha! This explanation of denaturalization is especially sharp because, while totally in line with the concept as discussed in class, there’s actually an extra claim embedded in it: denaturalization can be usefully connected with the idea that “the personal is political.” (Incidentally, the author was able to come back to this connection in the essay’s conclusion and offer further commentary on its importance—a strategy that made for an interesting and effective final paragraph that didn’t just reiterate the intro.) I think the thesis could still be pushed further, though; I want to know how Mackler’s and Sepanski’s projects fail to meet the criteria that have been established, and whether they fail for similar reasons.
• Using hooks’ argument that “the personal is political,” denaturalization should be seen as a complex process that involves acknowledging the stereotyped behavior, personally overcoming it, and, ultimately, collectively resisting the stereotyped behavior in the political arena. While hooks successfully denaturalizes the idea of women as inherently non-violent in her essay “feminism and militarism: a comment,” Carolyn Mackler’s essay “Memoirs of a (Sorta) Ex-Shaver” fails to denaturalize the idea that women are hairless, just as Diane Sepanski’s essay “The Skinny on Small” fails to denaturalize the idea that women are quiet. Both Mackler and Sepanski begin the process of denaturalization in that each author shows the transformation of her own consciousness, but their actions have not yet fully contradicted the stereotypes of which they have become aware.

Yup, I’ll take that. I’m not entirely sure that I actually agree with this argument, but the logic behind it is clear and sound and has been effectively presented. Now, of course, the rest of the essay has to follow through on this argument and do the actual work of proving the claims, but since the thesis cluster sets up such a specific set of criteria for analyzing and evaluating the essays, it should be fairly easy to check back and answer the question “is the essay really doing what I said it was going to do?”

Example: Assignment #2

As Toni Morrison wrote in Beloved , “The definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” This quotation suggests that control is exerted not only through physical and economic means but also through representational means. How does capitalist patriarchy maintain representational control of women? How do women participate in and/or resist this control? Discuss using one essay from Coward or Rapping and two other essays by authors of your choice.

• Our society’s beauty standard has been fostered by men’s control over the appearance of women’s bodies in movies and photography.

Well, this is a claim, but it’s one that’s kind of hard to disagree with because it’s not very specific; it also doesn’t let me know which essays will be used or how they’re going to fit into the discussion.

• Coward explains that our society’s beauty standard has been fostered by men’s control over the appearance of women’s bodies in movies and photography. Grealy and Hooper resist that control.

Better. But why Grealy and Hooper? We read lots of essays—why are these the important ones for this argument?

• Coward explains that our society’s beauty standard has been fostered by men’s control over the appearance of women’s bodies in movies and photography. Grealy and Hooper resist that control because they suffer from disabling and disfiguring diseases such as cancer, and thus cannot possibly meet that beauty standard.

Okay, so there’s a crucial similarity between those two authors. But how do they resist?

• Coward explains that our society’s beauty standard has been fostered by men’s control over the appearance of women’s bodies in movies and photography. Grealy and Hooper resist that control because they suffer from disabling and disfiguring diseases such as cancer, and thus cannot possibly meet that beauty standard. These women have found peace and strength in their community, and I would like to assert that this may be a way that other women too can face up to the demands made on them by patriarchal representations.

As a thesis, this works okay. It’s taking care of the control part of the question pretty quickly and focusing on the resistance part, which is fine—the important thing is that an argument is being made. But, because the idea of resistance is the focal point of the argument, I do think that the claim that other women can learn from Grealy and Hooper could be further emphasized.

• By arbitrarily defining the “perfect” female body, men have convinced women of their view of what is desirable and beautiful in our society. As Coward explains, this beauty standard has been fostered by men’s control over the appearance of women’s bodies in movies and photography. We can find suggestions for resistance from women like Grealy and Hooper, who, because they suffer from disabling and disfiguring diseases such as cancer, cannot possibly meet that beauty standard. These women have found peace and strength in their community, and I would like to assert that this may be a way that other women too can face up to the demands made on them by patriarchal representations.

Rather than doing a comparison/contrast of the three texts, this argument draws on Coward to establish an answer to the initial question (“how does capitalist patriarchy maintain control of women?”) and then analyzes two essays on similar topics to come up with a possible solution to the problem. The rest of the essay, then, needs to briefly summarize Coward and explain why her claims are compelling in order to justify the first part of its argument, and then go on to show that what women face as victims of debilitating diseases is analogous to what women face as victims of patriarchal control, and that therefore the strategies for dealing with one can help deal with the other.

Thesis Statements and Topic Sentences

Learning objectives.

• Identify strategies for using thesis statements to predict content of texts

We’ve learned that a thesis statement conveys the primary message of an entire piece of text.  Now, let’s look at the next level of important sentences in a piece of text: topic sentences in each paragraph.

A useful metaphor would be to think of the thesis statement of a text as a general: it controls all the major decisions of the writing.  There is only one thesis statement in a text.  Topic sentences, in this relationship, serve as captains: they organize and sub-divide the overall goals of a writing into individual components.  Each paragraph will have a topic sentence.

It might be helpful to think of a topic sentence as working in two directions simultaneously. It relates the paragraph to the essay’s thesis, and thereby acts as a signpost for the argument of the paper as a whole, but it also defines the scope of the paragraph itself. For example, consider the following topic sentence:

Many characters in Lorraine Hansberry’s play  A Raisin in the Sun have one particular dream in which they are following, though the character Walter pursues his most aggressively.

If this sentence controls the paragraph that follows, then all sentences in the paragraph must relate in some way to Walter and the pursuit of his dream.

Topic sentences often act like tiny thesis statements. Like a thesis statement, a topic sentence makes a claim of some sort. As the thesis statement is the unifying force in the essay, so the topic sentence must be the unifying force in the paragraph. Further, as is the case with the thesis statement, when the topic sentence makes a claim, the paragraph which follows must expand, describe, or prove it in some way. Topic sentences make a point and give reasons or examples to support it.

The topic sentence is often, though not always, the first sentence of a paragraph.

• Revision and Adaptation. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Topic Sentences. Authored by : Ms. Beardslee. Located at : http://msbeardslee.wikispaces.com/Topic+Sentences?showComments=1 . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Image of Parts of a Paragraph. Authored by : Enokson. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/ak9H3v . License : CC BY: Attribution

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7 Chapter 7: What is Theme and How do we Analyze its Development?

Chapter 7: What is Theme and How do we Analyze its Development?

Everything we have been going over thus far–and everything we will cover in the subsequent chapters–has been leading up to the question of theme and how we analyze its development in works of fiction. Theme is generally described shorthandedly as an idea that a narrative is conveying. And that’s effectively what a theme is: narratives introduce certain subjects or issues through their arrangements of plot, character, and setting and the overall “spin” implicit in its mode of deploying this subject, its implicit “philosophy” of this topic, is what we call theme. Theme cannot be conveyed by one or two words: death, transcendence, and Igbo cultural identity are all subjects, not themes. The complex, nuanced overall “statement” that the narrative as a whole is making about the nature of this subject through its manner of treating it through narrative — that is the theme. So to take the previous examples, “death is the act that gives overall meaning to a life,” “art can allow us to transcend even the most grim and socially marginalized living circumstances,” and “Igbo cultural identity is not homogenous, but has always been somewhat multifarious and contested, even during the precolonial period” are all themes or thematic statements a work of fiction might be making about the subjects mentioned above.

When we articulate theme and then break down how that theme has been developed over the course of the narrative, providing good, systematic textual evidence to show how this has been accomplished, we are offering an interpretation of a work of fiction. And this is precisely what we are to do when we are called on to analyze a work of fiction; in middle school we are generally called on to just summarize the work (to prove that we have basic reading comprehension skills), but from here forward you are being called on to put into practice this higher order form of reading that we call interpretation—to tease out central themes that works of fiction are conveying through their artful arrangement of the different formal structures of fiction that we have been covering in this textbook.

So how do we pull everything we’ve been looking at together to arrive at a methodology for analyzing theme? Well, unlike with math, there are no set formulas to use time and again, because works of fiction draw on a lot of different strategies for developing theme. So we will have to read imaginatively and over time develop a critical sensibility of the sort we discussed in chapter 2. But there are some things we can look out for that in the vast majority of cases will put us on the right track of tracing a work’s development of theme:

• The work’s title: Titles speak to what lies at the heart of a work. The title of this textbook, like those of all textbook’s, speaks in blunt, direct declarative language to its main focus. Works of popular fiction have titles that generally speak to their central plot focus either very literally, like in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , or in approachably metaphorical terms, like in the Twilight series (twilight being that time of day where day and night meet, or here the children of day and night – humans and vampires). But works of literary fiction are by nature idea-driven, and their titles generally speak in some way, shape, or form (generally oblique or figurative) to a central theme (or themes) at the heart of the work. This may take the form of some central metaphor or symbol the text employs, suggesting the centrality of this metaphor or symbol to the themes the work is dealing with – as in the case of Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf , a narrative fundamentally about outsiderness and alienation. It may proceed by way of allusion, where a work “riffs” off the meanings contained in an earlier text, like William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury , whose title alludes to a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that says human beings make a lot of noise in life, but when all is said and done those lives don’t mean much (for more on allusion, see chapter 9). And sometimes a work takes its title from the name of a central character, suggesting that its core themes revolve around that character, like in Kurt Vonnegut’s story “Harrison Bergeron,” whose title character dramatizes the social dangers of too much exceptional individualism and too much forced equality.
• Structure of conflict and resolution: As we discussed in our chapter on analyzing plot, the structure of conflict and resolution driving a narrative will put in play certain subjects or issues, and the overall take or inflection that the work as a whole gives to these is a central theme of the work. If we have a love plot, the work is going to be saying something about the nature of love, but also related concepts such as sexuality, relationship power dynamics, gender identity, and jealousy or possessiveness. A political drama will be intrinsically conveying certain themes about the political system that it represents, but also about such related issues as ambition, the nature of public opinion, the relationship between wealth and power, and/or betrayal.
• Patterns of repetition and emphasis: When analyzing the development of theme, keep an eye out for repetitions: plot points, imagery, uncommon words, and so forth. If we see for instance, multiple sibling relationships featured in the plot, repeated fire imagery, or multiple uses of a word like “stygian” or “ardor” that one doesn’t encounter frequently, we should ask if this fits into a larger pattern of thematic development we see emerging in the text. Likewise, if a narrative stops and lingers descriptively over something that isn’t essential to advancing the plot—the books on a character’s bookcase or all of the furnishings in a large ballroom , for instance—we should stop and ask what role these details play in advancing the themes the narrative is developing.
• Symbols and allusions: The next two chapters will look in depth at symbolism and allusion, but because their narrative function is to develop theme, a brief preview here is in order. Some objects, aspects of setting, names, etc. occurring in a narrative can be read as standing for an idea; this is what we call symbolism. Some conventional symbols are dogs symbolizing loyalty, red roses symbolizing passionate love, and a path representing the journey through life. But not all instances of symbolism draw on these kind of stock symbols. A narrative may develop its own symbols, using a fleet of garbage trucks to symbolize U.S. society’s obliviousness to the ecological costs of mass consumerism or a moldering old birthday cake to symbolize loss, regret, and the fleeting nature of elation. Since symbols advance ideas, when you recognize one, ask how it fits into the larger pattern of thematic development you are seeing in a narrative.

Another “tool” narratives use to develop theme is to make reference to other texts or to historical figures or events in a manner similar to sampling in music or hyperlinks on the worldwide web. Known as allusion, this is a way of borrowing or “piggy-backing” off of the themes developed in this reference to history or to another text. For instance, a character in a story could say he isn’t “into being his brother’s keeper,” verbally alluding to the story of Cain and Abel in the biblical Book of Genesis, with its complex mediation on the ethical obligations and violent rivalries that undergird fraternal relationships. Or a city in a narrative might be named Laghouat, alluding to the site of an 1852 French army massacre of Algerians in its brutal “pacification” of the country and thereby introducing the idea of mass violence in the service of imperialism. Again, for more information of the ways that symbols and allusions advance theme, see the following two chapters.

• Dynamic characters: As we discussed in our chapter on analyzing characterization, if a major character changes in some way over the course of a narrative, the work is conveying some theme based on the nature of that change. For example, if a character encounters characters of different social backgrounds over the course of a narrative and consequently moves away from his close-mindedness and intolerance at the beginning of the narrative, then the story is saying that experience has the capacity to make people more open-minded and accepting of difference over time.

There are some additional key considerations we have to keep in mind when analyzing a work’s development of theme. For one, we have to analyze a work as a whole, as an entire textual unit with complex internal interrelationships, not just “cherry-pick” part of the narrative, ignoring how the themes it conveys receive further development elsewhere in the narrative. A novel, for instance might advance a certain idea about bravery in an earlier chapter, only to deeply challenge or qualify this idea with events that occur towards the end of the narrative. Another thing to keep in mind is just because a character expresses an idea doesn’t mean that the narrative as a whole embraces it. Works of fiction, especially novels, employ a kind of dissonant chorus of different voices and perspectives through different characters, some of whom only exist thematically to show how wrong-headed their viewpoint is. For example, a number of characters in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises express anti-Semitic viewpoints, but this doesn’t mean that the work itself is anti-Semitic, just that it thematically explores the nature of anti-Semitism in relationship to the U.S. culture of the time. Similarly, very rarely is a character with all the answers going to stand up on a soap box and pontificate for the reader, directly and unalloyedly laying out theme; while there are certain works that do this, like Jack London’s socialist classic The Iron Heel , this kind of heavy-handed preachiness is considered unartful and hence is generally avoided in works of modern fiction—if you were to take a creative writing class in fiction writing, one of the first things you would be taught is that fiction should “show, not tell.” That is, expect themes to be developed through the unfolding of plot and character, not to be spelled out through blunt declarative language like that of an accounting textbook—because this is how fiction as a genre communicates: by making stories that illustrate certain things about the nature of their subject matter.

And finally, when analyzing the development of theme, make sure that you are laying out the abstract concept (theme) the narrative is conveying, then breaking down thoroughly how it has been developed through the development of plot, character, etc. and through such devices as symbolism and allusion—make sure that you are not just summarizing (recapping the major events of the plot). Ask yourself, are you saying that “The Tortoise and the Hare” is a story about the superiority of hard work and perseverance over inherent talent, then breaking down how this idea has been developed through the construction of the narrative, or are you just saying that “The Tortoise and the Hare” is a story about a turtle and a rabbit who get in a race that the turtle wins?

Suggested Short Story Readings to Accompany This Chapter

                Obviously all works of fiction convey themes, so just about any work could be used to compliment this chapter. My preference is for works with a relatively unambiguous development of themes that have not over time become clichéd or proverbial. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is a good fit, as is George Saunders’s “Sea Oak” (because it challenges hegemonic notions regarding the American Dream and poverty) and Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” (because U.S. students, being in the grip of hegemonic notions regarding freedom and totalitarianism, will tend to elide certain crucial textual details and fail to see the story’s satirical critique of incipient U.S. television culture).

An Introduction to the Analysis of Fiction Copyright © 2023 by Michael K. Walonen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Theme Definition

What is theme? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

A theme is a universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature. One key characteristic of literary themes is their universality, which is to say that themes are ideas that not only apply to the specific characters and events of a book or play, but also express broader truths about human experience that readers can apply to their own lives. For instance, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (about a family of tenant farmers who are displaced from their land in Oklahoma) is a book whose themes might be said to include the inhumanity of capitalism, as well as the vitality and necessity of family and friendship.

Some additional key details about theme:

• All works of literature have themes. The same work can have multiple themes, and many different works explore the same or similar themes.
• Themes are sometimes divided into thematic concepts and thematic statements . A work's thematic concept is the broader topic it touches upon (love, forgiveness, pain, etc.) while its thematic statement is what the work says about that topic. For example, the thematic concept of a romance novel might be love, and, depending on what happens in the story, its thematic statement might be that "Love is blind," or that "You can't buy love . "
• Themes are almost never stated explicitly. Oftentimes you can identify a work's themes by looking for a repeating symbol , motif , or phrase that appears again and again throughout a story, since it often signals a recurring concept or idea.

Theme Pronunciation

Here's how to pronounce theme: theem

Identifying Themes

Every work of literature—whether it's an essay, a novel, a poem, or something else—has at least one theme. Therefore, when analyzing a given work, it's always possible to discuss what the work is "about" on two separate levels: the more concrete level of the plot (i.e., what literally happens in the work), as well as the more abstract level of the theme (i.e., the concepts that the work deals with). Understanding the themes of a work is vital to understanding the work's significance—which is why, for example, every LitCharts Literature Guide uses a specific set of themes to help analyze the text.

Although some writers set out to explore certain themes in their work before they've even begun writing, many writers begin to write without a preconceived idea of the themes they want to explore—they simply allow the themes to emerge naturally through the writing process. But even when writers do set out to investigate a particular theme, they usually don't identify that theme explicitly in the work itself. Instead, each reader must come to their own conclusions about what themes are at play in a given work, and each reader will likely come away with a unique thematic interpretation or understanding of the work.

Symbol, Motif, and Leitwortstil

Writers often use three literary devices in particular—known as symbol , motif , and leitwortstil —to emphasize or hint at a work's underlying themes. Spotting these elements at work in a text can help you know where to look for its main themes.

• Near the beginning of Romeo and Juliet , Benvolio promises to make Romeo feel better about Rosaline's rejection of him by introducing him to more beautiful women, saying "Compare [Rosaline's] face with some that I shall show….and I will make thee think thy swan a crow." Here, the swan is a symbol for how Rosaline appears to the adoring Romeo, while the crow is a symbol for how she will soon appear to him, after he has seen other, more beautiful women.
• Symbols might occur once or twice in a book or play to represent an emotion, and in that case aren't necessarily related to a theme. However, if you start to see clusters of similar symbols appearing in a story, this may mean that the symbols are part of an overarching motif, in which case they very likely are related to a theme.
• For example, Shakespeare uses the motif of "dark vs. light" in Romeo and Juliet to emphasize one of the play's main themes: the contradictory nature of love. To develop this theme, Shakespeare describes the experience of love by pairing contradictory, opposite symbols next to each other throughout the play: not only crows and swans, but also night and day, moon and sun. These paired symbols all fall into the overall pattern of "dark vs. light," and that overall pattern is called a motif.
• A famous example is Kurt Vonnegut's repetition of the phrase "So it goes" throughout his novel Slaughterhouse Five , a novel which centers around the events of World War II. Vonnegut's narrator repeats the phrase each time he recounts a tragic story from the war, an effective demonstration of how the horrors of war have become normalized for the narrator. The constant repetition of the phrase emphasizes the novel's primary themes: the death and destruction of war, and the futility of trying to prevent or escape such destruction, and both of those things coupled with the author's skepticism that any of the destruction is necessary and that war-time tragedies "can't be helped."

Symbol, motif and leitwortstil are simply techniques that authors use to emphasize themes, and should not be confused with the actual thematic content at which they hint. That said, spotting these tools and patterns can give you valuable clues as to what might be the underlying themes of a work.

Thematic Concepts vs. Thematic Statements

A work's thematic concept is the broader topic it touches upon—for instance:

• Forgiveness

while its thematic statement is the particular argument the writer makes about that topic through his or her work, such as:

• Human judgement is imperfect.
• Love cannot be bought.
• Getting revenge on someone else will not fix your problems.
• Learning to forgive is part of becoming an adult.

Should You Use Thematic Concepts or Thematic Statements?

Some people argue that when describing a theme in a work that simply writing a thematic concept is insufficient, and that instead the theme must be described in a full sentence as a thematic statement. Other people argue that a thematic statement, being a single sentence, usually creates an artificially simplistic description of a theme in a work and is therefore can actually be more misleading than helpful. There isn't really a right answer in this debate.

In our LitCharts literature study guides , we usually identify themes in headings as thematic concepts, and then explain the theme more fully in a few paragraphs. We find thematic statements limiting in fully exploring or explaining a the theme, and so we don't use them. Please note that this doesn't mean we only rely on thematic concepts—we spend paragraphs explaining a theme after we first identify a thematic concept. If you are asked to describe a theme in a text, you probably should usually try to at least develop a thematic statement about the text if you're not given the time or space to describe it more fully. For example, a statement that a book is about "the senselessness of violence" is a lot stronger and more compelling than just saying that the book is about "violence."

Identifying Thematic Statements

One way to try to to identify or describe the thematic statement within a particular work is to think through the following aspects of the text:

• Plot: What are the main plot elements in the work, including the arc of the story, setting, and characters. What are the most important moments in the story? How does it end? How is the central conflict resolved?
• Protagonist: Who is the main character, and what happens to him or her? How does he or she develop as a person over the course of the story?
• Prominent symbols and motifs: Are there any motifs or symbols that are featured prominently in the work—for example, in the title, or recurring at important moments in the story—that might mirror some of the main themes?

After you've thought through these different parts of the text, consider what their answers might tell you about the thematic statement the text might be trying to make about any given thematic concept. The checklist above shouldn't be thought of as a precise formula for theme-finding, but rather as a set of guidelines, which will help you ask the right questions and arrive at an interesting thematic interpretation.

Theme Examples

The following examples not only illustrate how themes develop over the course of a work of literature, but they also demonstrate how paying careful attention to detail as you read will enable you to come to more compelling conclusions about those themes.

Themes in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald explores many themes in The Great Gatsby , among them the corruption of the American Dream .

• The story's narrator is Minnesota-born Nick Caraway, a New York bonds salesman. Nick befriends Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, who is a wealthy man who throws extravagant parties at his mansion.
• The central conflict of the novel is Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy, whom he met and fell in love with as a young man, but parted from during World War I.
• He makes a fortune illegally by bootlegging alcohol, to become the sort of wealthy man he believes Daisy is attracted to, then buys a house near her home, where she lives with her husband.
• While he does manage to re-enter Daisy's life, she ultimately abandons him and he dies as a result of her reckless, selfish behavior.
• Gatsby's house is on the water, and he stares longingly across the water at a green light that hangs at the edge of a dock at Daisy's house which sits across a the bay. The symbol of the light appears multiple times in the novel—during the early stages of Gatsby's longing for Daisy, during his pursuit of her, and after he dies without winning her love. It symbolizes both his longing for daisy and the distance between them (the distance of space and time) that he believes (incorrectly) that he can bridge. 
• In addition to the green light, the color green appears regularly in the novel. This motif of green broadens and shapes the symbolism of the green light and also influences the novel's themes. While green always remains associated with Gatsby's yearning for Daisy and the past, and also his ambitious striving to regain Daisy, it also through the motif of repeated green becomes associated with money, hypocrisy, and destruction. Gatsby's yearning for Daisy, which is idealistic in some ways, also becomes clearly corrupt in others, which more generally impacts what the novel is saying about dreams more generally and the American Dream in particular. 

Gatsby pursues the American Dream, driven by the idea that hard work can lead anyone from poverty to wealth, and he does so for a single reason: he's in love with Daisy. However, he pursues the dream dishonestly, making a fortune by illegal means, and ultimately fails to achieve his goal of winning Daisy's heart. Furthermore, when he actually gets close to winning Daisy's heart, she brings about his downfall. Through the story of Gatsby and Daisy, Fitzgerald expresses the point of view that the American Dream carries at its core an inherent corruption. You can read more about the theme of The American Dream in The Great Gatsby here .

Themes in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

In Things Fall Apart , Chinua Achebe explores the theme of the dangers of rigidly following tradition .

• Okonkwo is obsessed with embodying the masculine ideals of traditional Igbo warrior culture.
• Okonkwo's dedication to his clan's traditions is so extreme that it even alienates members of his own family, one of whom joins the Christians.
• The central conflict: Okonkwo's community adapts to colonization in order to survive, becoming less warlike and allowing the minor injustices that the colonists inflict upon them to go unchallenged. Okonkwo, however, refuses to adapt.
• At the end of the novel, Okonkwo impulsively kills a Christian out of anger. Recognizing that his community does not support his crime, Okonkwo kills himself in despair.
• Clanswomen who give birth to twins abandon the babies in the forest to die, according to traditional beliefs that twins are evil.
• Okonkwo kills his beloved adopted son, a prisoner of war, according to the clan's traditions.
• Okonkwo sacrifices a goat in repentence, after severely beating his wife during the clan's holy week.

Through the tragic story of Okonkwo, Achebe is clearly dealing with the theme of tradition, but a close examination of the text reveals that he's also making a clear thematic statement that following traditions too rigidly leads people to the greatest sacrifice of all: that of personal agency . You can read more about this theme in Things Fall Apart   here .

Themes in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

Poem's have themes just as plot-driven narratives do. One theme that Robert Frost explores in this famous poem,  The Road Not Taken ,  is the illusory nature of free will .

• The poem's speaker stands at a fork in the road, in a "yellow wood."
• He (or she) looks down one path as far as possible, then takes the other, which seems less worn.
• The speaker then admits that the paths are about equally worn—there's really no way to tell the difference—and that a layer of leaves covers both of the paths, indicating that neither has been traveled recently.
• After taking the second path, the speaker finds comfort in the idea of taking the first path sometime in the future, but acknowledges that he or she is unlikely to ever return to that particular fork in the woods.
• The speaker imagines how, "with a sigh" she will tell someone in the future, "I took the road less travelled—and that has made all the difference."
• By wryly predicting his or her own need to romanticize, and retroactively justify, the chosen path, the speaker injects the poem with an unmistakeable hint of irony .
• The speaker's journey is a symbol for life, and the two paths symbolize different life paths, with the road "less-travelled" representing the path of an individualist or lone-wolf. The fork where the two roads diverge represents an important life choice. The road "not taken" represents the life path that the speaker would have pursued had he or she had made different choices.

Frost's speaker has reached a fork in the road, which—according to the symbolic language of the poem—means that he or she must make an important life decision. However, the speaker doesn't really know anything about the choice at hand: the paths appear to be the same from the speaker's vantage point, and there's no way he or she can know where the path will lead in the long term. By showing that the only truly informed choice the speaker makes is how he or she explains their decision after they have already made it , Frost suggests that although we pretend to make our own choices, our lives are actually governed by chance.

What's the Function of Theme in Literature?

Themes are a huge part of what readers ultimately take away from a work of literature when they're done reading it. They're the universal lessons and ideas that we draw from our experiences of works of art: in other words, they're part of the whole reason anyone would want to pick up a book in the first place!

It would be difficult to write any sort of narrative that did not include any kind of theme. The narrative itself would have to be almost completely incoherent in order to seem theme-less, and even then readers would discern a theme about incoherence and meaninglessness. So themes are in that sense an intrinsic part of nearly all writing. At the same time, the themes that a writer is interested in exploring will significantly impact nearly all aspects of how a writer chooses to write a text. Some writers might know the themes they want to explore from the beginning of their writing process, and proceed from there. Others might have only a glimmer of an idea, or have new ideas as they write, and so the themes they address might shift and change as they write. In either case, though, the writer's ideas about his or her themes will influence how they write. 

One additional key detail about themes and how they work is that the process of identifying and interpreting them is often very personal and subjective. The subjective experience that readers bring to interpreting a work's themes is part of what makes literature so powerful: reading a book isn't simply a one-directional experience, in which the writer imparts their thoughts on life to the reader, already distilled into clear thematic statements. Rather, the process of reading and interpreting a work to discover its themes is an exchange in which readers parse the text to tease out the themes they find most relevant to their personal experience and interests.

Other Helpful Theme Resources

• The Wikipedia Page on Theme: An in-depth explanation of theme that also breaks down the difference between thematic concepts and thematic statements.
• The Dictionary Definition of Theme: A basic definition and etymology of the term.
• In this instructional video , a teacher explains her process for helping students identify themes.

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5.2: Thesis Examples

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SAMPLE THESIS STATEMENTS

These sample thesis statements are provided as guides, not as required forms or prescriptions.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The thesis may focus on an analysis of one of the elements of fiction, drama, poetry or nonfiction as expressed in the work: character, plot, structure, idea, theme, symbol, style, imagery, tone, etc.

In “A Worn Path,” Eudora Welty creates a fictional character in Phoenix Jackson whose determination, faith, and cunning illustrate the indomitable human spirit.

Note that the work, author, and character to be analyzed are identified in this thesis statement. The thesis relies on a strong verb (creates). It also identifies the element of fiction that the writer will explore (character) and the characteristics the writer will analyze and discuss (determination, faith, cunning).

Further Examples:

The character of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet serves as a foil to young Juliet, delights us with her warmth and earthy wit, and helps realize the tragic catastrophe.

The works of ecstatic love poets Rumi, Hafiz, and Kabir use symbols such as a lover’s longing and the Tavern of Ruin to illustrate the human soul’s desire to connect with God.

The thesis may focus on illustrating how a work reflects the particular genre’s forms, the characteristics of a philosophy of literature, or the ideas of a particular school of thought.

“The Third and Final Continent” exhibits characteristics recurrent in writings by immigrants: tradition, adaptation, and identity.

Note how the thesis statement classifies the form of the work (writings by immigrants) and identifies the characteristics of that form of writing (tradition, adaptation, and identity) that the essay will discuss.

Further examples:

Samuel Beckett’s Endgame reflects characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd in its minimalist stage setting, its seemingly meaningless dialogue, and its apocalyptic or nihilist vision.

A close look at many details in “The Story of an Hour” reveals how language, institutions, and expected demeanor suppress the natural desires and aspirations of women.

The thesis may draw parallels between some element in the work and real-life situations or subject matter: historical events, the author’s life, medical diagnoses, etc.

In Willa Cather’s short story, “Paul’s Case,” Paul exhibits suicidal behavior that a caring adult might have recognized and remedied had that adult had the scientific knowledge we have today.

This thesis suggests that the essay will identify characteristics of suicide that Paul exhibits in the story. The writer will have to research medical and psychology texts to determine the typical characteristics of suicidal behavior and to illustrate how Paul’s behavior mirrors those characteristics.

Through the experience of one man, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, accurately depicts the historical record of slave life in its descriptions of the often brutal and quixotic relationship between master and slave and of the fragmentation of slave families.

In “I Stand Here Ironing,” one can draw parallels between the narrator’s situation and the author’s life experiences as a mother, writer, and feminist.

SAMPLE PATTERNS FOR THESES ON LITERARY WORKS

1. In (title of work), (author) (illustrates, shows) (aspect) (adjective). 

Example: In “Barn Burning,” William Faulkner shows the characters Sardie and Abner Snopes struggling for their identity.

2. In (title of work), (author) uses (one aspect) to (define, strengthen, illustrate) the (element of work).

Example: In “Youth,” Joseph Conrad uses foreshadowing to strengthen the plot.

3. In (title of work), (author) uses (an important part of work) as a unifying device for (one element), (another element), and (another element).  The number of elements can vary from one to four.

Example: In “Youth,” Joseph Conrad uses the sea as a unifying device for setting, structure and theme.

4. (Author) develops the character of (character’s name) in (literary work) through what he/she does, what he/she says, what other people say to or about him/her.

Example: Langston Hughes develops the character of Semple in “Ways and Means”…

5. In (title of work), (author) uses (literary device) to (accomplish, develop, illustrate, strengthen) (element of work).

Example: In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe uses the symbolism of the stranger, the clock, and the seventh room to develop the theme of death.

6. (Author) (shows, develops, illustrates) the theme of __________ in the (play, poem, story).

Example: Flannery O’Connor illustrates the theme of the effect of the selfishness of the grandmother upon the family in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

7. (Author) develops his character(s) in (title of work) through his/her use of language.

Example: John Updike develops his characters in “A & P” through his use of figurative language.

• Thesis Examples. Authored by : University of Arlington Texas. Located at : http://libguides.uta.edu/c.php?g=517839&p=3592550 . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial