Literary themes. You either love them or hate them.

If you’re like me, the mere idea of talking about themes in literature can brighten your day. Deep, philosophical discussions about ideas, symbols, and the meaning of life.

Or maybe your heart is sinking at the thought: all these abstract concepts and slippery ideas, often near impossible to pin down in their vague intangibility.

Understanding how to use literary themes in your story is one of the most important steps you can take in your writing journey. In this article, I’ll take you step-by-step through what a literary theme is, some example themes, and suggestions for how to incorporate themes into your story.

What is a Theme in Literature?

As discussed in my earlier article What is the Theme of a Story?, a theme is the underlying  message, meaning, or purpose behind a literary work.

In literary fiction, stories tend towards complex and intertwining themes, which often ask more questions than they answer. Literature explores some of the most difficult, unsolvable issues in life. Works of literary fiction are often open to multiple interpretations, and the most long-lasting books can generate multiple secondary works of academic critical analysis. For this reason, you can study literary themes to the highest level of education. 

Literary fiction tends to hold up a mirror to life, throwing light on humanity: our society, our world, our individualism, our behaviour, and our relationships. That doesn’t mean that only realistic novels can constitute great literature – speculative fiction can just as effectively reveal human truths through imagined worlds.

But serious engagement with complex questions about humanity usually requires the writer to retain humility about the limits of his or her knowledge and insight. Works of Literary Fiction, therefore, rarely claim to give readers clear or reassuring answers to the questions they posit.

Commercial genre fiction, by contrast, often has a clear primary theme within its story, which most readers will identify in similar ways. This doesn’t mean that literary fiction is inherently superior to commercial fiction, only that their purposes diverge. Readers seeking enlightenment on the complexities of life will often turn to literary fiction to explore these issues, whereas readers seeking entertainment, relaxation, or comfort in times of stress are more likely to seek out commercial genre stories.

Commercial novels often carry specific thematic messages appropriate to their genre. Examples of such themes include:

• Romance: Love Conquers All.
• Crime: The Truth Will Out.
• Fantasy: Good Conquers Evil in the End.

Frequently, genre fiction carries messages of hope – the belief that as long as we act decently and abide by ethical social conventions, we can all find our version of happiness, truth or justice in the end. Genre-specific exceptions exist: Horror and Dystopia, for example, allow for more ominous thematic messaging and less-than-happy endings.

Genre fiction can overlap with literary fiction. Many of the most successful commercial stories also ask complex questions about the nature of humanity. For example, Suzanne Collins’s dystopian YA novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes carries a typical dystopian theme: Power Corrupts. But the story also contains a skilful exploration of how one’s inner beliefs can be slowly etched away by a desire to survive and thrive within a toxic society. The story’s romantic subplot carries the disheartening message that love is rarely enough in the face of power, and the story resists commercial fiction’s tendency towards hopeful endings. 

Literary fiction can also choose to adopt commercial fiction’s more hopeful approach to life. Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, for example, ends with the hopeful message that resistance is worthwhile: tyrants will fall in the end.

In the end, there are no hard and fast rules distinguishing between literary and commercial fictions, but analysis of a story’s themes can provide insight as to why one story might be defined as literary and another as commercial.

Whether you’re writing commercial or literary fiction, understanding how to develop key themes in your story allows you to engage with the reader expectations inherent within your story’s genre.

Common Theme Examples 

Certain themes have dominated Literature for centuries. These literary themes carry universal appeal throughout time, questioning key aspects of what it means to be human.

Let’s look at some of the most enduring themes, examining how they’ve been explored in literature past and present.

Nature versus Nurture:

William Shakespeare, The Tempest: 

In Shakespeare’s time, as Europeans brutally colonised the New World, questions of Nature versus Nurture carried extensive social implications. Within his play, Shakespeare asks: are people born evil or good, or do they become so, through upbringing and experience? Is the island’s native, Caliban, inherently a monster, or has his nature been twisted into monstrous behaviour through captivity and slavery? His behaviour ranges from justified rebellion to deplorable crime, but his poetry remains some of the most beautiful and lyrical lines in the play. Shakespeare gives no definitive answer, letting the audience decide.

Elena Ferrante, My Beautiful Friend and sequels: 

The complex friendship between Lina and Lenu asks a multitude of questions. To what extent are these two characters defined by their genetic characteristics – their physical appearance and intelligence – and to what extent are they products of their different upbringings? While both are born into poverty, Lenu escapes their childhood neighbourhood through her access to higher education, while Lina remains behind, becoming enmeshed in the society of gangsters. As children, their society often defines the rebellious Lina as bad, and the timid Lenu as good. But Ferrante shows us the truth is far more complex than this, as we examine the impact of different inherited family traits and different upbringings on the two women, whose lives diverge drastically as they age throughout the four novels.

Fate versus Free Will: 

William Shakespeare, MacBeth: 

When MacBeth hears the witches’ prophesy that he will be King one day, was it Fate that he became so? Or was it his free choice to kill everyone standing in his way?

Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children: 

Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of midnight on the day India is freed from British rule, is born with telepathic powers – a gift granted to all children in India born between midnight and 1am that day. This unusual gift changes Saleem’s life. The question remains throughout this story: how much of Saleem’s life is pre-ordained as a result of his birth, and how much of it is determined by his own free will and choices? And likewise, how free is the new nation of India to grow into its own identity, or is the country fated, by the past actions of the British Empire, to fall into oppression? And how free is any new Indian citizen to fulfil their own potential, given the weight of their country’s past. 

Reality versus Art and Artifice:

William Shakespeare, The Tempest: 

As the curtain falls upon this play, events having been carefully manipulated into a happy ending by the master magician Prospero and the master playwright Shakespeare, the dramatist asks us to question the difference between reality and art. Is the whole world a stage, and we merely its players, controlled by God above? Does the magical story on stage represent human experience with more coherence and meaning than reality itself?

John Fowles, The Magus: 

Depressed and isolated on a remote Mediterranean island, Nicholas Urfe encounters an intriguing, exceedingly wealthy man, Maurice Conchis. Nicholas becomes drawn into Conchis’s mind-games, in which Nicholas is manipulated into re-enacting elements of mythology and the Nazi occupation. Nicholas becomes unable to distinguish between artifice and reality, with the reader drawn into confusion alongside him. By the novel’s end, the reader may question to what extent artistic representations and narratives about the past obscure the reality of our world.

Madness versus Sanity

William Shakespeare, King Lear: 

As Lear descends into madness, he arguably gains greater wisdom and a deeper understanding of his world than he possessed when he was considered sane.

J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye: 

Our narrator tells us his story from an insane asylum. Yet he’s coherent, and his perspective on the flaws of the modern world seem deeper and more insightful than many of the supposedly sane people who surround him. Is sanity, in modern America, dependent upon a person intentionally blinding themselves to the culture’s phoniness?

List of Example Themes:

It would be impossible to create an entirely comprehensive list of themes.

Here, I’ve compiled a list of 120 example themes.

Please be aware: most of these themes can be phrased or expressed in myriad different ways. As an artist, you have freedom as to how you choose to phrase, express and interpret themes with your work.

• Love
• Friendship
• Motherhood/ Fatherhood/ Parenthood/ Siblinghood
• Family/ Kinship
• Unconditional Love
• Unrequited love
• Eternal Love
• Nature
• Domesticated versus undomesticated animals
• Power
• Corruption
• Justice
• Mercy
• Revenge
• Society/ Community
• Freedom
• Survival
• Chaos and Order
• Borders and Boundaries
• Democracy
• Capitalism
• Communism
• Socialism
• Colonialism/ Imperialism
• Human rights
• Gender relations
• Race relations
• Equality/ Inequality
• Monarchy
• War
• Fame/ Celebrity
• Displacement
• Xenophobia
• Home
• Education
• The Power of Narratives
• The American Dream (or another National Dream)
• Nationhood
• The Law
• Religion
• Climate Change
• Indigenous Ways of Life versus Modern Ways of Life
• Materialism
• Money
• Class struggles
• Poverty/ Wealth
• Propaganda
• Rebellion and Revolution
• Technology
• Science
• Betrayal
• Good versus Evil
• Sin
• Innocence
• Temptation
• Rags to Riches, and Riches to Rags
• The Underdog
• Dreams
• Heroism
• History
• Legacy
• Inheritance
• Neglect
• Waste
• Imagination
• Travel
• Tragedy
• Identity
• Survival
• Growth
• Faith
• Transcendence
• Death
• Regeneration
• Healing and Health
• Memory
• Music
• Art
• Hope
• Psychology and Psychological treatments
• Medicine and Medical Treatments
• Time, and the Interconnection of Past, Present and Future
• Aging
• Childhood
• Perseverance
• Integrity
• Universalism
• Oppression
• Depression
• Progress
• Redemption
• Solitude
• Simplicity
• Subjectivity and Perspective
• Suicide
• Truth and lies
• Violence
• Virtue
• Youth
• Winning and Losing
• Willpower
• Jealousy
• Self-awareness
• Ambition
• Arrogance
• Bravery
• Desire
• Honour
• Hypocrisy
• Optimism/ Pessimism
• Perfectionism
• Pride
• Prejudice
• Stoicism
• Self-awareness
• Self-discipline
• Selfishness
• Trust
• Vanity
• Wisdom

Tips for Using Themes in Literature

Don’t Just Tell–Show 

How many times have you heard the refrain: show, don’t tell?

This advice applies to theme as much as any other aspect of writing – with the caveat that you may want to both show and tell your theme, rather than just show it, or just tell it.

Anyone familiar with Save the Cat story structure for novels, as set out by Jessica Brody, will be aware that early in the story structure guidance there’s an opportunity for the theme to be stated (at roughly 5% into the story).  Stating the theme subtly but early in your story clues your reader in for what to look out for as your story develops, and there’s much to be said for this guidance. It also ensures that you, as the writer, are thinking about themes early on as you draft your story.

For a commercial genre story, there may well be one main story theme to be stated or hinted at about the 5% mark. A literary fiction novel can have many overlapping themes, so it’s up to your artistic discretion which theme you choose to showcase at this point in the story.

Referring directly to your theme (i.e. telling it) early on is a useful tip. However, it’s important your story structure then continues to show your theme or themes as the story develops.

We’ll look next at how you can show your theme on the macro level (story structure), the medium level (scene structure) and the micro level (language and imagery at the sentence level).

Story Structure

The themes in your story are what your story is about – on a deep level, below the surface of plot.

The literary themes which you decide are most important to your story should be threaded through the key plot points – the Inciting incident, Plot Point One, Middle, Plot Point Two and Climax.

This means that your protagonist’s overall story goal, their motivation for that story goal, and the lesson they need to learn in order to achieve their story goal, should also all be linked to your key theme or themes. The more key themes you have, the more carefully you need to work to ensure these themes are integrated within all the plot points.

Scene Structure

Each individual scene in your story should engage with your various themes, considering the questions raised by your themes from different angles. Individual scenes provide opportunities to focus in on specific themes, highlighting one over another, or showing how one theme relates to another. 

Each scene should impact your protagonist’s ability to achieve their story goal. Your protagonist’s motivations within each scene, along with the external conflict and inner obstacles they encounter, should ideally all relate to your themes.

Language and Imagery

Your story’s themes should infuse your story’s language and imagery.  

For example, if your theme is Power, then consider what symbols of power you might use at a sentence level: thrones, sceptres, crowns, swords, hammers, fists, eagles, dragons, the sun, the colour purple, and so on. You might also choose to have your powerful characters wield strong, powerful sentences, while your weaker characters stumble along with winding, weak prose.

By understanding your stories themes – that is, by knowing what it is you are actually saying with your story – you’ll be able to ensure your story’s voice and style are consistent with its overall structure.

Take care not to go overboard, drowning your prose with unwanted similes and metaphors, but remember the power of imagery when used carefully. Look at your favourite authors for inspiration as to how to infuse your prose with images and symbols of your key themes.

Conclusion

Once you understand how to develop literary themes, you can add depth and layers to your stories.

Themes enable writers to reach out and speak to readers about the issues they care about.  Think of themes as a conversation-opener, rather than a way to preach at your readers.

None of us have answers to the world’s biggest problems, but you can enjoy the process of exploring these questions with your readers.