A theme in literature is a central idea a work explores through its characters and events. "Ambition" names a broad theme or thematic topic. A theme statement goes further: Shakespeare's Macbeth suggests that unchecked ambition breeds violence rather than security.
Each of the 20 entries below names a broad theme, examines a moment that tests it, and offers an interpretation of what that moment shows.
1. Love
The last scene of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet takes place in the Capulet tomb. Romeo kills Paris at the entrance and drinks poison beside Juliet, who is only drugged, not dead. She wakes minutes too late and stabs herself with his dagger.
Only over their bodies do Montague and Capulet take each other's hands and promise to raise statues of gold. "All are punish'd," the Prince says. Love saves nobody in this play. What it does is make the feud pay in full.
2. Ambition
In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, before Duncan's murder, Macbeth sees a dagger in the air with its handle turned toward his hand. After it, the blood won't come off. Duncan's death leads to Banquo's, then to Macduff's wife and children.
By Act 5, Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep, rubbing at a stain that isn't there: "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." The crown was meant to finish something. It started something instead.
3. Power and Corruption
In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the Seven Commandments are painted on the end wall of the big barn, and they change at night. "No animal shall drink alcohol" quietly gains the words "to excess." Then one morning all seven are gone, replaced by a single line: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."
Rewriting the commandments is one means of control. The pigs also rely on Squealer's persuasion and the dogs' force. By the last page, the animals looking in through the farmhouse window can't tell the pigs from the men.
4. The American Dream
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!" Gatsby tells Nick. His mansion, fortune and summer of parties are meant to win Daisy back.
It rains on the day of his funeral. Hundreds of people drank his champagne, but at the grave stand Nick, Gatsby's father, the minister, a few servants, the postman from West Egg and the man in owl-eyed glasses. Someone murmurs, "Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on," and the owl-eyed man answers, "Amen to that," in a brave voice. Afterward, by the cemetery gate, he says to Nick, "The poor son-of-a-bitch." The money bought a crowd. It could not buy back the past.
5. Law and Conscience
In Sophocles' Antigone, a frightened guard has to tell Creon that someone has scattered a thin layer of dust over Polynices' body. That is enough for a burial rite, and it breaks the king's order that the traitor be left for dogs and birds. Antigone admits she did it and doesn't apologize.
Creon has her sealed in a cave. Only when the prophet Tiresias warns him does he give way, and by then Antigone has hanged herself. His son Haemon dies on his own sword beside her, and his wife Eurydice kills herself when she hears. Sophocles ends the play with Creon still king and completely alone.
6. Fate and Free Will
In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, at a place where three roads meet, an old man in a carriage tries to drive a young traveler off the road and strikes him with a goad. The traveler kills him and all his attendants but one.
Years later, King Oedipus learns that the old man was Laius, his father. The prophecy set the trap, but it was his temper that sprang it.
7. Revenge
William Shakespeare's Hamlet ends in a fencing match that Claudius has rigged twice over. Laertes's foil is unbated and its point poisoned, and a poisoned cup of wine waits in case the blade misses. Gertrude drinks from the cup. The same blade cuts both Hamlet and Laertes. Hamlet forces the rest of the wine down Claudius's throat.
Hamlet gets his revenge, but he, Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius all die. Horatio survives to tell the story.
8. Identity and Gender Roles
In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, when Torvald reads that Nora forged a signature to borrow money that saved his life, his first worry is his reputation. Then a second letter returns the bond and he cries, "I am saved!" Now he is ready to forgive her.
Nora takes off her party costume and puts on everyday clothes. She sits him down for what she says is their first serious talk in eight years of marriage, then leaves. The play ends on the sound of the street door slamming shut below. Nora's departure suggests that becoming your own person can mean rejecting the role a marriage assigns you.
9. Loneliness and Friendship
In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, ranch hands, George says, "got nothing to look ahead to." He and Lennie have the dream of a few acres and rabbits, and that dream is what makes them different from the rest.
At the riverbank pool where the novel began, George tells Lennie about the rabbits one last time, his hand and Carlson's Luger resting on the ground behind Lennie's back. He shoots before the lynch mob arrives. The last thing his friendship can give Lennie is a death without fear.
10. Home and the Journey Back
In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope tests the stranger who claims to be Odysseus by asking the nurse to move their bed out of the bedroom. He bursts out that it can't be moved, because he built one bedpost from the trunk of a living olive tree. His knowledge of their bed convinces Penelope that he is her husband. In Homer, getting home takes being recognized as well as arriving.
11. Redemption
In Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge a neglected gravestone with his own name on it. The next morning he sends the prize turkey to the Cratchits. The following morning he announces Bob's raise, and in the years that follow he becomes a second father to Tiny Tim, who does not die. Dickens's claim is that people can change late in life, once they have seen where their choices lead.
12. Sacrifice
In O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi," Della sells her hair for twenty dollars to buy Jim a platinum fob chain for his gold watch. Jim sells the watch to buy her a set of tortoise-shell combs with jewelled rims, the ones she had admired in a Broadway shop window.
She opens the box. The combs are perfect, and she has nothing left to put them in. Both gifts have lost their practical use, but the sacrifices give them their worth as expressions of love.
13. Nature and Survival
In Jack London's "To Build a Fire," at seventy-five below zero, the man's spit crackles in the air before it hits the snow. An old-timer at Sulphur Creek warned him never to travel alone in that cold.
Snow slides off a spruce bough and smothers his fire. He lights another, but his shivering scatters the twigs and it goes out. He catches his dog, hoping to kill it and warm his hands inside its body, but his hands cannot grip his knife or strangle it. He freezes. The cold doesn't care what the man thinks of himself.
14. Coming of Age
In Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, on a stormy night, a weather-beaten stranger climbs Pip's stairs in London and greets him with joy: "Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you!" Pip's money came from Magwitch, the convict he fed on the marshes as a boy, and never from Miss Havisham.
Pip's disgust tells him what kind of gentleman he has become. In Great Expectations, growing up means losing the flattering story about where your fortune came from, and then standing by the man who paid for it.
15. Prejudice and Justice
In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the jury convicts Tom Robinson although Atticus has shown that Tom's crippled left arm makes the charge almost impossible. Atticus packs his briefcase and walks out. In the balcony, the Black spectators rise to their feet, and Reverend Sykes nudges Scout: "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'."
The court has failed. The balcony knows who did justice anyway, and Scout learns it from them.
16. Mortality
In Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Gerasim, the young peasant servant, holds Ivan's legs on his shoulders for hours, easing his pain. He is also the only one in the house who doesn't pretend Ivan is merely ill.
Everyone else keeps up the polite lie. Facing the wall, Ivan finally asks what Tolstoy wants every reader to ask: what if his whole correct, respectable life has been wrong?
17. Creation and Responsibility
In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, "It was on a dreary night of November" that Victor brings his creature to life. The moment its dull yellow eye opens, he runs out of the room.
The creature learns language by listening to a family from his hiding place beside their cottage. Blind De Lacey welcomes him, but Felix returns and drives him away. Only after all that rejection does it kill Victor's brother William, and later Elizabeth on her wedding night. The horror in Mary Shelley's novel starts with a father running away.
18. Conformity and Censorship
In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the firemen soak an old woman's house and books in kerosene, and she refuses to leave. She strikes a kitchen match herself.
Montag has already slipped one of her books under his coat. The incident deepens his rebellion against a society where people chose screens and comfort long before the government started burning books.
19. Memory and the Past
In Toni Morrison's Beloved, a young woman emerges from a stream fully dressed. Wet and breathing shallowly, she rests against a mulberry tree for a day and a night as her dress dries. The next morning, she makes her way to 124 Bluestone Road and sits on a stump near the steps. Sethe comes to believe she is the daughter she killed rather than let her be taken back into slavery.
Sawyer dismisses Sethe after repeated lateness. She gives Beloved the food while she herself wastes away. Denver seeks help, and Ella rallies the community's women. Their singing outside the house helps break the hold of the past.
20. Civilization and Savagery
In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Piggy is holding the conch when Roger levers the boulder off Castle Rock. The rock hits him, and the conch "exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist."
The shell had never had any power of its own. The boys gave it authority by agreeing to, and the order on the island lasted only as long as that agreement did.
Key Takeaways
- A broad theme names a central concern, such as revenge. A theme statement explains an interpretation of that concern, supported by events such as the fencing match in Hamlet.
- The same topic can lead to opposite claims. Love saves nobody in the Capulet tomb, and in "The Gift of the Magi" it gives two useless gifts their worth.
- Common themes keep coming back because the questions behind them do. Getting home matters as much to Odysseus as the house at 124 does to Sethe.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you write a theme statement?
Write one full sentence expressing what the work suggests about a central topic, then test it against events throughout the work, including the ending. "Revenge" names a broad theme, not a theme statement. "Revenge can destroy both its target and those pursuing it" is a statement supported by the final scene of Hamlet.
What are the most common themes in literature?
Common themes covered in this article include love; ambition; power and corruption; the American Dream; law and conscience; fate and free will; revenge; identity and gender roles; loneliness and friendship; home and the journey back; redemption; sacrifice; nature and survival; coming of age; prejudice and justice; mortality; creation and responsibility; conformity and censorship; memory and the past; and civilization and savagery.
What is a theme in a story?
A theme is a central idea explored through a story's events. The plot of "The Gift of the Magi" is that Della sells her hair and Jim sells his watch. Love and sacrifice are broad themes; a theme statement explains what those sales suggest about them.
Can a book have more than one theme?
Yes, most books have several. Of Mice and Men is about friendship and also about how fragile dreams are, and Hamlet is about mortality as much as revenge, as Yorick's skull shows.
Does a theme have to reflect the author's personal beliefs?
No. A work can explore an idea without endorsing it. A character's opinion, even a memorable speech, is not automatically the work's theme; test it against the other characters, events and consequences.
Turn a Topic Into Meaning
To write a theme statement, start with a broad topic, then connect a character's choices to their consequences. In Macbeth, ambition leads to murder, but the crown brings neither safety nor peace.
Revise it if important events contradict it. Keep the distinction clear: "Macbeth kills Duncan" summarizes plot; the statement about ambition interprets what that action and its consequences mean.