eHow launches Android app: Get the best of eHow on the go.
How to Analyze a Poem
How to Generate Short Story Ideas
How to Identify a Short Story Theme
How to Identify Narrative Style in Literature
How to Write a Book or Story
How to Write a Novel
How to Write a Romantic Love Poem
How to Write a Short Story
Publishing Advice for Writers
Writing Techniques for Novels
Symbolism is the implied or interpreted being of an object or ritual found in writing, art and customs. Le… More
Figurative language describes an idea or item through comparison. Authors and speakers use it to enhance t… More
What's the difference between reading a dictionary and experiencing a novel, film or poem? Worlds of diffe… More
The use of allegory in writing is a common practice that has been in existence since the beginning of lite… More
Without the use of descriptive language, the world of literature would be a mighty boring place. Descripti… More
Reading literature for fun is often different from reading literature for academics and work. Reading for … More
Writing a literary analysis paper involves finding a topic that is personally interesting, finding primary… More
Literary analysis is the practice of reading a work of literature with a critical eye rather than for mere… More
An interesting story contains detailed characters, entertaining plots, diverse settings and creative writi… More
The George Orwell book "Animal Farm" was written at the height of World War II. It was an allegorical look… More
T.S. Eliot is a famous poet known for his difficult imagery and epic length poems. With strong metaphor us… More
Modernist literature is often very confusing to readers. Postmodernism does not get any easier! There are … More
As a writer, a valuable resource for improving your craft is online critique groups. You can submit sampl… More
Identifying a short story theme requires figuring out whose story it is, how someone achieves the overall … More
Released on Easter weekend, 1999, the Matrix rocked moviegoers, provoking intense reactions from Christian… More
Summary: Identifying a short story theme requires figuring out whose story it is, how someone achieves the overall goal and what the moral undertones of the story are. Decipher a short story theme, paying attention to who goes through the most change, with tips from a published author and English professor in this free video on writing.
David M. Harris has taught English at Vanderbilt University and elsewhere. He has published poetry, essays, short fiction and a novel, and he has worked in book and magazine publishing.read more
"It's easy enough to tell what happens in a short story but it is much harder to identify the theme. The theme isn't always based on what happens. The first thing we have to look for is whose story is it? The story isn't always about the person who appears to be the protagonist so we look at who is changed in this story? The protagonist may be the one who does a lot of things and achieves his or her goals but if someone else is changed then it might be that other person's story. This is more likely in a novel than a short story but you have to be careful in any case. So whose story is it? Who achieves or spectacularly fails to achieve goals? That's the core of the short story is somebody needs to achieve some goal so who is blocked from it is as important as who succeeds at it. Every story has a moral element, sometimes that moral element is that there is no morality or that life is absurd but that is always present so someone is being rewarded or punished for a certain kind of behavior. What kind of behavior is that that is being rewarded? That's the kind of behavior that the story is endorsing so once we know what the moral position of the story is then we can look and see well how does that fit in? How can we develop a theme, a general idea from the story from that and once you nail down those things you should be able to work the rest out."
eHow Article: How to Identify a Short Story Theme
Copyright © 1999-2009 eHow, Inc. Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the eHow Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. en-US Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.
Comments
tony67 said
on 12/14/2008 David, this is great stuff... I'm trying to break free of the constraints of writing news reports over the past two decades where descriptive writing was effectively banned. I'm hoping to tell in fiction some of the true stories I recall that were not fit to print in the news media for legal or personal reasons. Your videos are concise and illuminating, and I might well link to them when I can get my blog a little moe organised... thanks!
http://www.tonytrainor.com/journal