Theme

1. 4. 1 What Is Theme?

One of the safest comments to make about novels is on the theme. Everyone is entitled to extract a theme based upon his understanding of the novel. Theme may be the most democratic element in literature, because its definition is the least restrictive. The theme of a novel is its controlling idea or its central insight. Being an idea or an insight, the theme should be abstract and it should generalize about life. Labeled as controlling or central, the theme should be capable of unifying the whole novel.

1.4.2 Clarification about Theme

Common as it is, theme suffers some misunderstandings. One misconception about theme is that each novel has a theme or themes, or theme Is Important to all novels. In fact, some novels, interesting ones though, do not provide any insight into life, for example, many novels of ratiocination and novels of horror. These novels are aimed at entertaining the reader, not at improving his understanding of life. They may sometimes touch upon the human nature or social problems, but these issues are only used to push the plot forward and they are not mentioned for their own value. Theme exists only in the novels that seriously attempt to reflect life faithfully or intend to reveal truth about life or in the novels that are based on ideas or theories of life ( for example, novels of ideas).

Another misconception about theme is that the theme is largely what the novel is. Some people discard the novel when they think that they have got the theme. It should be made clear that the novel is not written to convey an idea but to convey an idea artistically. The novel is a work of art whereas the theme is only an abstract idea. An analogy from daily life may help clarify this question. All people need vitamins and get them from various kinds of vegetables and fruits. Only those with deficiency of one kind or another have to take vitamin pills to get the required amount. The difference between the theme and the novel is much like that between the vitamins and the vegetables. The reader sometimes finds that the theme of a novel is similar to or even the same as what he has already known about life and that he is still fascinated by the novel. This further explains the difference between the theme and the novel. Theme appeals solely to the intellectual level of reading while the novel as a whole mainly appeals to the emotional level.

Another pitfall concerning the theme is to confuse a theme with a moral or lesson. Usually, a moral or a lesson is the advice stated or implied in a parable or fable. It is something of a rule by which one can regulate his behavior. For example, “Be kind to your neighbors,” or “Honesty is the best policy. But a theme is more complicated than this as a novel is to enhance one's awareness of life rather than simply to tell him how to behave.

A novel is a complicated matter and different readers may have different interpretations of the same novel, so it is incorrect to presume that one novel has only one theme. In some cases, there are several subthemes to the main theme. In reality, some novels are appreciated for their thematic ambiguity. For example, Moby Dick can be interpreted in more ways than one.

Finally, the theme is not to be confused with the subject. The theme is an idea while the subject is a matter or an affair. "Love is invincible" may be a theme, but "love" is only a subject. A subject may be universal. The subjects of The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, and Women in Love are all love. "But these novels have different themes. A theme is particular to its novel, though there are many similar themes to be found in other novels.

1.4.3 Five Requirements for Stating a Theme

The statement of a theme may be brief or long. And there are different ways to express one and the same theme. But it should meet the following requirements.

(1)A theme must be expressed in the form of a statement with a subject and a predicate. For example, "Love of one's country often inspires heroic self-sacrifice." If a theme is expressed in the form of a phrase, then the phrase must be convertible to sentence form. One can say that the theme of a novel is "futility of envy.” The phrase can be changed to Envy is futile. When one chooses to state a theme in the phrase form, he must be very careful about its convertibility to sentence form. For instance, the phrase "selfless maternal love" does not always mean that "Maternal love is selfless.

(2) The theme is a generalization about life based on the novel, and the statement of theme should be true also of other people or life situations. Therefore, names of characters and places should not be mentioned. For they suggest specific things and invite limitations. So in thematic discussion of Wuthering Heights, one may mention people's psychology of revenge,” but not “Heathcliff’s.”

(3) Though a theme is a generalization, over-generalization should be avoided. Since a theme is extracted from a particular novel (a particular event), it may not be applicable to all situations. So words like “always,” “ never,” “all,” and“ every" should be avoided. Instead, one should use words like “some,” “sometimes” and “may.” When making a generalization, one should strictly keep to what is actually in the novel and not smuggle into it assumptions supplied from his past experience。

(4) Since the theme is the central and unifying idea of the novel. it must account for all the major details and must not be contradicted by any details in the novel.

(5) Since a theme is different from a moral or a lesson, one should avoid reducing a theme to a cliche or platitude like "Beauty is only skin-deep. " If one crams every new experience into an old formula, he loses the opportunity of new perception provided by reading novels.

1. 4. 4 Where to Look for the Theme

The novelist may state or imply the theme. He uses every possible method to convey the theme. Though the theme is based upon the whole novel, practically, we can specify some important areas in which to look for the theme.

(1) How the novel is entitled. The title is the name of the novel and in many cases ( almost all cases) the novelist intends it to tell something important about the novel. Sometimes the central theme of the novel is present in the title. For example, Pride and Prejudice is about Darcy's pride and Elizabeth Bennet’ s prejudice. Main Street is about the life of middle-class people in a midwestern town. Think what the title of For Whom the Bell Tolls tells about its theme, and As I Lay Dying.

(2) How the novelist shows his interest. If the novelist is Interested in something, he would allow more space to it, describing or narrating in great detail. Yet, sometimes he emphasizes it by leaving it out, as in the case of Ernest Hemingway. The point concerned here is why novelist gives more attention to this particular character, scene or event but not others.

(3) How the novelist deals with a common subject. Often the novelist has to include in his work some common subjects, but if he treats the common subjects in an uncommon way, it shows that he is trying to convey something new or important in the novel. Maybe it is the theme that demands him to do so.

(4) Important symbols. Symbols are loaded with important meanings. So if a symbol appears repeatedly or at important moments, it may point to the theme of the novel. A good example Is the letter "A" in The Scarlet Letter.

(5) Important speeches. Characters talk and in their talk are revealed their Judgments of the other characters or events. The characters' judgments may give important clues to the theme.

1.5 Setting

An event occurs and a character exists in a particular time and place. This particular time and place is referred to as setting. A setting is the background against which a character is depicted or an event narrated. Its purpose is to provide an imaginary link between what happens in the novel and what the reader takes to be reality. Like some other elements, setting is not peculiar to the novel. The reader finds it serving the same purpose indifferent genres. The traditional way to tell a story reveals much about setting."Once upon a time there lived a king named Midas in Phrygia. He loved gold more than anything else but his little daughter. The opening sentences of "Golden Touch" introduce the time, place, and the usual mentality of the character. Usually, a setting consists of time and place. It can also mean circumstances such as Midas's mentality. A setting may be detailed or sketchy. It depends on the novelist's purpose of writing and his idea of works of art. A setting may or may not be symbolic. Generally, a setting is more concerned with the physical aspects. Setting is closely related with exposition in that they both help to make possible the events in the novel. In fact, an exposition must have a setting. But setting goes along with every event in the novel whereas exposition is only the initiating action.

1.6 Narrative Point of view

1. 6. 1 What Is Point of View?

The issue of point of view is highly philosophical, because it concerns the relation between the novelist and the "facts" in the novel, the relation between the novelist and the reader, and the relation between the novel and the reader. The point of view is the attitude or outlook of a narrator or character in a piece of literature, or it is the relationship between the narrator and the narrated. Metaphorically, a point of view is a standpoint from which he narrator sees the story and how he intends the reader to see the story. When we open a novel, we open a window to life. What a vision the novel provides largely depends on the point of view

1. 2 What Is a Narrator?

A narrator is the one who tells the story, often called the storyteller. But the narrator is not necessarily the novelist. Even when the novel is written in the first person, the "I" Is not the novelist, but a person invented by the novelist. The logic is that a fictional world, if disturbed person, will collapse.

1. 3 Kinds of Point of View

Point of view can be divided by the narrator's relationship with the character, represented by the grammatical person: the first-person narrative and the third-person narrative.

In the first-person narrative, the narrator appears in the novel as "I" or me."He may tell a story in which he himself is the hero as in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or he may tell a story in which he is only a minor character as in The Great Gatsby. Anyway, the narrator is a participant in the events. By assuming the identity as "I," the narrator endears himself to the reader while he has to sacrifice the privilege of omniscience.

In the third-person narrative, the narrator does not actually appear and all the characters are referred to as “he,"“she,” or “they." As a hidden observer, the narrator is privileged to know all the happenings or what he chooses to know, not only what actually happens, but also what goes on in the minds of the characters. In short, the narrator is free to be omniscient or selectively omniscient, or to be both alternatingly. In War and Peace the narrator enjoys omniscience. In The Ambassador the narrator confines his field of vision to that of a character and relates the story in the character's point of view. This character is a center and all others are laid out in due perspective.

Point of view can be divided by the narrator's relation with the events- whether the narrator participates or not: the participant narrator and the nonparticipant narrator.

The participant narrator is a person who has experienced something and comes back to report. Ishmael in Moby Dick is a good example. As a participant, the narrator may take an active or passive role in the event. His report and understanding of the event may or may not be reliable or complete, because he is denied omniscience and he may be prejudiced

The nonparticipant narrator stands outside what he is relating and therefore he is given complete freedom as for what he wishes to do with the story.

Point of view can be divided by the extent of the narrator’s knowledge of the events: the omniscient narrator, the selective omniscient narrator, the objective narrator and the so-called "innocent eye.”

The omniscient narrator knows everything whereas the selective omniscient narrator knows something. The objective narrator does not tell but shows. He is like a camera that goes from scene to scene and records what can be recorded for the reader. This kind of point of view is also called the dramatic point of view because the reader is like the audience in a theater. The innocent-eye narrator understands what he is relating less than the reader does. Therefore, his narration is capable of irony.

A narrator is governed simultaneously by all the three standards mentioned above; therefore, the different points of view he may adopt overlap each other. The table below shows the overlapping between each narrative point of view.