What is the point of themes?

[zoopeeker]

Hi! I registered really just for this one subject which somewhat puzzles me, and I figured a literature forum like this is the best place to start from.

I'm trying to understand what value people consider literary themes to have. Especially formal critique of literature, or any fictional medium really, seems to put a lot of emphasis on themes; I get the impression that a lot of people feel that a work without themes is often just mindless entertainment, whereas having themes elevates the work and makes it say something. However, I feel like I'm largely blind to themes and don't really see what the fuss is about, and this is the kind of meta-question which to my surprise I don't see discussed anywhere.

Example: a story might plot-wise be about a guy making it through an awkward family reunion. However, someone more theme-oriented might insist that that's a superficial understanding, and that the story is really about, say, forgiveness and the role of family in postmodern society. Now, I'm not completely oblivious to how and why someone might say that; those are probably things which most motivations, plots and character developments directly relate to or are connected to in one way or another -- in other words, the themes. The thing I am oblivious to is how having themes like that (or any other) makes the story any better? How does having many central parts of the story relate to a common, abstract concept make the story more enjoyable, memorable or otherwise worth one's time? What are the psychological mechanics of how themes improve a work?

I realize that there's probably almost as many answers to that as there are to the question of "what makes a story good", but I'll be content if I can simply come to understand at least some common angles to it. I've tried to come up with as many different takes on it as possible, but I don't really have any idea whether any/some/all of these completely miss the mark or whether I'm missing something obvious:


A story can't go into detail about every thought a character has or every thing that happens to them; thus, all stories need to narrow their focus and concentrate on certain kinds of situations, motivations, thoughts and whatnot. Are themes mostly just referring to what the work focuses on, and that a lack of themes makes the work unfocused and thus harder to follow and enjoy?
Are themes referring to some of the things which tend to make a story good (for example, having the characters and events be emotionally engaging) regardless of whether one identifies or cares about themes as such, and thus a work that is good almost inevitably has themes?
Are themes referring to real-world ideas or issues the author wants to make the audience think about?
Is identifying and analyzing themes simply enjoyable in itself, sort of similar to how for example examining clever foreshadowing can be?
Is identifying and analyzing themes mostly just an academic pursuit, a way of probing, categorizing and dissecting the work (or the author's mind) from a somewhat objective perspective?


So, if you're someone for whom themes matter, why is that? What do you get out of them? Do you think I get something out of them, without realizing it?

[bounty]

hi zoopeeker...insightful question(s) I think and I suspect in a short matter of time, some very well literature educated/experienced people will jump in and write lots in response. in the meantime, you got me...smiles...

in a couple of particular classes (not English) I taught some years ago I had the students reading both fiction and non-fiction (biographies and memoirs). theme identification was a part of the expected work in relation to the reading.

for my part, if a student said "hey, why are we doing this?" I would have said because identifying themes helps us not only to understand the meaning of the work, but the value of it as well.

from a teaching perspective, though this is a little outside your direct question, it was fascinating also to listen to the students, who having read the same passages, come up with varying themes. in that regard, theme identification became a tool for learning about subjectivity in interpretation. but then also---one of the things the theme recognition did, was to allow each of the students to identify more personally with the book.

if i set about to write a book, i think the first thing id do is to ask myself "what do i want the story to be about?" the theme is the groundwork from which everything is built.

lastly, I think themes are ultimately what we remember, whether we consciously identify them or not (so better to identify them in my book). if someone asks me what is such and such a movie about, i immediately wonder whether to tell them about the plot/story or to speak in the broad underlying strokes.

[Aylinn]

Your question is interesting. I have noticed that people from America and England tend to look for themes in works of art while the rest of Europe seems to put more focus on the structure of the work. It made me realize that it means a different approach to literature. If you look for themes, etc., it usually means that you expect the work to be thought-provoking, deep, etc. If you analyze structure, you are more interested in how well-crafted the work is, the emphasis is on beauty. Of course one doesn’t exclude the other, so a work of art can be both thought-provoking and beautiful.

Are themes referring to real-world ideas or issues the author wants to make the audience think about?
I think it is this. I am pretty sure that, for example, Orwell wanted his readers to think about issues he brought up in 1984 rather than make them awed by the beauty of his prose.

[Adonais]

How does having many central parts of the story relate to a common, abstract concept make the story more enjoyable, memorable or otherwise worth one's time? What are the psychological mechanics of how themes improve a work?

Human consciousness is a search for meaning found in unity.

Neuroscience tells us that the brain, in putting together our mental understanding of the world, operates clusters of neurons on two frequencies: the first system allows us to recognise objects distinct from one another (so e.g, we can tell the difference between a table and a chair); the second allows us to cohere these distinct objects into a single, unified mental picture (so we can see the chair and table together in their relation to each other). Put together, both functions allow us to represent reality in our own minds: this is consciousness.

So built into our evolved human biology is a programme, running whenever we're awake, that is integrating every single piece of new information our brain encounters every day into whatever existing understanding of reality we already possess. Human experience is the manufacture of patterns and the integration of them into mental schemas. For example, "a lion ate my friend yesterday" is a single distinct event (a piece of individual information); if we can connect it to other experienced events ("a lion ate my uncle last month") and recognise a pattern from them ("lions keep eating people") our brain can then build a mental schema ("lions are dangerous, avoid!") which imposes order on our human experiences and provides coherent guidelines of *what to do* with new pieces of information ("a lion's in front of me, is that good or bad?") need to be processed.

This function of our brain gives humans an innate drive to find, discover, recognise, (even create) patterns in nature, and also in art. This makes finding connections between separate pieces of information immensely pleasurable for humans; it's also the basis of metaphor, which is the basis of language, which is the basis of literature.

Anyway, we can easily apply this to themes. To say Romeo and Juliet is about the theme of love is to make a lot of very (to our brains in principle) interesting and pleasurable connections between what would be otherwise separated events, which we can then integrate into a mental schema which can be applied to future pieces of information we encounter (what does Goethe's Werther say about love?). Thus our understanding of reality expands.

As a disclaimer I haven't slept, so that all might be nonsense. :D

[Whifflingpin]

"As a disclaimer I haven't slept, so that all might be nonsense." Let's have some more of that kind of nonsense, please.

[Ecurb]

It seems to me that reductionist explanations for an emphasis on "themes" in literature are unpersuasive. Do all human cultures emphasize "themes" when talking about literature? If not, the biological explanation advanced by adonais is unpersuasive. It is probably true that humans enjoy finding patterns and integrating them into "mental schemas". Nonetheless, we can do this in many ways.

Here's my guess (and it's only a guess). We (I'm an American) teach literature in school as part of the "English" curriculum. The English departments' goals in secondary school are to teach teenagers to read and to write. In order to teach them to read, novels, plays, poems and other forms of literature are assigned. In order to teach kids to write, we have them write essays about the novels, plays and poems, because that's what they are reading for the other half of the departmental goal.

Mature literary criticism discusses themes, styles, character development, artistic technique, and (my favorite kind) gossips about (and judges) the characters just as we gossip about and judge our friends in real life. However, school children lack the literary expertise to discuss style, and teachers probably think that gossiping about the characters lacks the seriousness with which they hope their students will write their essays.

Some basic forms of the essay are: descriptive, expository, persuasive and narrative. For some reason (I'm not sure what it is) schools concentrate on teaching persuasive and expository writing. This is reasonable: writing such essays teaches kids to describe facts effectively, and to make logical, reasoned arguments. "Themes" are relatively simple generalizations that high school kids can write about in their essays.

I think once we move on to mature literary criticism, there is less emphasis on "themes" than there is in high school (or undergraduate) English classes.

[ennison]

Food for thought: theme. Some are vegan, some starvation, some are banquets.