Busting Misconceptions

All too often, it is the small things that make big impressions upon examiners as they struggle to assess your examination papers as quickly and as accurately as possible. Subject Report after Subject Report speak, with increasing exasperation, of how students' failure to address the question in the first sentence of the essay in Paper 2, preferring instead to launch into some pre-prepared introduction of the two works being written about, creates a very poor first impression. However good the rest of the essay, such impressions set an early marker for the examiner as to what level of student you are, one that cannot always be amended by the evidence of the rest of the essay.

The same is very true when it comes to the misuse of the word 'theme'. A theme is a universal message, something broader and more general than the specifics of the plot or character of a work akin to or universal truth or a human commonality. It is, then, essentially an analytical interpretation of subtextual meaning. A theme can never be a one-word abstract noun, no matter how many bad models that suggest just that we see all over the place (including, alas, in many literature classrooms and textbooks).

For example:

Revenge is not a theme. It is a concept, an idea. To be a theme, it would have to say something about revenge. Revenge is best served cold, on the other hand, could be a theme, as there is some form of interpretation of the author's message. Revenge is never worthwhile (along the lines of 'two wrongs don't make a right') could be an alternative theme.

Love is not a theme, but Love is a destructive force could be.

Appearance versus reality is not a theme, but it could be seen as a motif. However, Humans always wear a mask of deception could well be a theme.

Finally, to be a theme it can't just be about the work itself. Heathcliff is jealous of Edgar Linton is not a theme. It is a topic or simply an element of fictional plot and character - there is no universal truth there.