Example Cleanup: Central Theme

A Central Theme is the message of a work the author is trying to convey to the audience (through the central conflict and resolution to that conflict). A motif is a recurring element in a story.

Many examples in Central Theme are motifs. Take, for instance, Christianity's example: "Salvation and Redemption." Those cannot possibly be messages; those are recurring elements—motifs. Another mythological/religion example is Classical Mythology's "The folly of Pride." What about the folly of Pride? It is looked upon many times throughout the Classical myths, but the folly of Pride is a recurring element.

(I'm using the religion section since people are more likely to know of these particular examples instead of a specific, obscure Manhwa or Web Comic.)

There are other issues with examples, bordering on Zero Context Examples even, but I think removing/rewording the motifs is simpler for now.

I've seen a wick or two conflate Central Theme with Motifs, which is another issue to cleanup.

Having been through AP Lit, it really bugs me to see people just putting a couple of words as a "central theme". The way I learned it, the theme is a statement, and you need a complete sentence to make a statement. "War is bad" can be a theme; "War" is just a topic. If you really want to sum up your favorite show in a word or phrase, I believe there's already a Just for Fun thing where you describe a work with one trope.

So how do we go about cleaning it up?

Not only that, but the Central Theme page even says in the description: "Different from An Aesop in that the Central Theme is often a question rather than a direct precept".

If a Central Theme gets changed to a statement, wouldn't that make it interchangeable with An Aesop?

In this context, An Aesop can be gleaned from any portion of a story, and it's usually something that's stated outright; it's something that the creator thinks the audience should do or think, and it's presented in a (relatively) easily accessible manner. The Central Theme is much harder to define, but it's essentially what the work as whole "says". It can be An Aesop, but it's often a more complex statement, sometimes completely unintentional on the creator's part. In lit class, it's basically An Aesop you have to think really hard to decipher xD

Further complicating matters, the Central Theme is, technically, YMMV. Since you have to look at what happens throughout the entire story and find the meaning of it, a lot of it depends on your personal worldview, so it's very unlikely that two people will see the exact same Central Theme for a given work. Similar, perhaps, but not the same.

Consider the Shoot the Shaggy Dog story. A cynic might say the theme is, "Don't bother helping anyone, because you'll only cause trouble for yourself and might not even make a difference in the long run." Someone of a slightly more philosophical persuasion might just say, "The universe is random and cruel." They're both valid interpretations of the story, and although they're certainly connected, they're considerably different. Most people would say the story has no Aesop, but here are two possible Central Themes (which I'm pretty sure the original author didn't have in mind, except possibly in terms of parody).

I have no idea why the description says that a theme should be phrased as a question; that's certainly not how I learned it.

edited 12th Jul '13 12:14:43 PM by CaptainPeregrin

According to The Other Wiki:

"The most common contemporary understanding of theme is an idea or concept that is central to a story, which can often be summed in a single word (e.g. love, death, betrayal)."

So if this is valid, then the Christianity example above is quite valid; 'Salvation' and 'redemption' may be single words, but they are nevertheless perfectly valid ways of summing up what, at its core, the central theme of Christianity is (since most if not all of the stories, myths and teachings arising from Christianity are about how humanity has been or can be saved or redeemed of its sins).

"Consider the Shoot the Shaggy Dog story. A cynic might say the theme is, "Don't bother helping anyone, because you'll only cause trouble for yourself and might not even make a difference in the long run." Someone of a slightly more philosophical persuasion might just say, "The universe is random and cruel." They're both valid interpretations of the story, and although they're certainly connected, they're considerably different. Most people would say the story has no Aesop, but here are two possible Central Themes (which I'm pretty sure the original author didn't have in mind, except possibly in terms of parody)."

To be honest, those seem to me to be really similar — they're both essentially saying how people are at the mercy of random and cruel fates that determine whether their actions have any meaning or significance, which should in turn determine their actions, but the former is merely phrasing the latter in a lengthier and more overtly cynical fashion. "The universe is random and cruel" is hardly an optimistic sentiment, after all. In any most discussions of the concept suggest that a work can have more than one central theme; I've amended the page accordingly.

"I have no idea why the description says that a theme should be phrased as a question; that's certainly not how I learned it."

This may have changed since the discussion here (I'm aware I'm a bit behind), but the page as I saw it doesn't — it says that the theme can be stated as a question, since it's something the author wants the reader to think about and a good way to get people thinking about something is to ask them a question. In any case, I think it's just an attempt to distinguish it a bit more from an Aesop. If the Aesop is the conclusion the author reaches, and the Theme is the concept or idea that the author develops to reach that conclusion, then a good way to identify what is going from 'concept' to 'conclusion' is to phrase the concept as a question which can then be answered. Furthermore, while the reader may disagree with the author's conclusion, in most cases the work is still going to be addressing that particular question/concept/idea whether the reader wants it to or not. To take the Shoot The Shaggy Dog example, the reader might reject the Aesop that the universe is random, unfair and cruel, but the story is still about how the universe is random, unfair and cruel no matter how hard they might want it to be about something else.

edited 9th Jan '14 7:33:55 AM by DoctorNemesis

Dead for seven years without progress. Locking.