- [David] Hello, readers!
Let's talk about themes and how authors
can intentionally build
messages into fiction.
Now, to recap a little,
themes link big ideas
about the world we live in
with the action of a text.
For example, in "The Lord of
the Rings" stories and films,
the One Ring represents absolute power
and how dangerous that is.
How do we know that though?
How did J. R. R. Tolkien, as an author,
develop that theme in the text?
How can we go deeper,
beyond that headline of the Ring equals
the dangers of absolute power?
Good readers can look at a
whole text from beginning to end
and identify where the author
purposefully chose words,
included details, or directed action
that develops or reveals
the overall theme.
It's not just that characters say,
"Oh, no, the Ring's super-dangerous."
In fact, I believe in "The
Fellowship of the Ring,
Gandalf says, "No, with that power,
"I should have power
too great and terrible.
"And over me, the Ring could gain a power
"still greater and more deadly.
"Do not tempt me!"
The characters say that, they do,
but it's also about how they
behave around the thing.
It's how the plot is
shaped around this object
and how a group of people come together
to identify this Ring as a
dangerous, magical artifact
that needs to be destroyed
for the good of the world.
It's not just dialogue.
It's also descriptions by the author
and actions taken by the characters.
So let's go through some of the ways
that an author can develop
theme within a story,
with the important caveat
that you won't always be able
to detect a theme in a text until you're
already finished reading
it for the first time.
This, to me, is one of the
great pleasures of rereading.
You've already worked hard
to get an understanding of the text,
so now you can go back
and pick up all the stuff
you might not have noticed the first time.
So one way to develop theme
is through the repeated use
of a symbol or an object.
The Ring in "Lord of the
Rings" is a great example
because characters are
always talking about it.
But it could really be anything,
a design, an object, an animal.
Imagine a story about a
child who wants to grow up
to be an engineer that develops airplanes.
And throughout this story,
birds keep showing up,
birds on the protagonist's windowsill,
her favorite teacher's bird earrings,
maybe she has a best friend named Robin.
And from that, we can see the idea
of flight is a theme in this story,
and all of these
bird-related things go back
to this character's desire to take flight.
Changes in setting are a
fine way to develop themes.
How is a location portrayed?
How does it match with
the way characters feel
or behave when they
appear in these locations?
Imagine a character who
desperately wants to be alone.
So at a tense portion in the story,
she flees to a distant mountaintop.
When she gets there,
what's the weather like?
Is it cold, snowy, and
forbidding on the mountain?
Is it an active volcano,
bubbling with lava?
Is it clear, peaceful, full of
snowdrops and mountain goats?
What would an author be trying
to say with those decisions?
How should we, the reader,
feel about that character's solitude?
If it's snowy and forbidding,
is it a symbol of the
character's coldness,
of their hardening up?
Does the volcano reflect
the character's explosive potential?
Or does the beauty of
the lonely mountaintop
mean this was the right decision
for the character to take?
Dialogue that repeatedly
references a similar idea
can be a way to develop theme.
When characters mention something a lot,
it's probably because the
author is thinking about it
and maybe wanted to build it
intentionally into the story.
Imagine a teenager in Ancient Rome
who's preoccupied with
honor and his family name
and how he's worried he won't live up
to the achievements of his ancestors.
If that's something that
he's insecure about,
he might think about it often
or talk about the concept of honor
or the social standing of his family.
You can also see this
presented as explicit lessons
by a sage character,
usually older and wise.
Think of Moana's grandmother or of Yoda.
They'll say something explicit like,
"Go do the thing your heart wants, Moana,"
or, "Trust that the energy of the universe
"will make you a really
good space wizard, Luke."
I'm paraphrasing here.
Or think of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz,"
saying, "There's no place like home."
She says it again and again.
The words are so powerful
that they're used as a magic spell.
And words so powerful
that they become magic
is really just another way to say theme.
It doesn't need to be
said aloud to be thematic.
Some of the most powerful moments
in storytelling come from
action, not just dialogue.
Momentous character decisions,
like Maui giving up his
powers to save Moana
or Harry Potter's climactic
battle with Voldemort,
are chock-full of themes,
self-sacrifice, the power of love,
the importance of honesty.
Some of these themes can be expressed
without speaking a single word.
And I should be clear.
Sometimes you need to finish the story
before you can look back
on it and understand
how parts of it contribute to the theme.
You might need to get some distance
before you can see how all
of the pieces fit together.
If something really sticks with me,
sometimes I like to go back
and reread parts of a book
once I've gotten a sense of its theme,
to see how the author has
threaded theme through the text.
Now, if you look very closely
at the videos I make here at Khan Academy,
if you really squint your
eyes and listen carefully,
you'll notice that all of
them share the same theme,
which is you can learn anything.
David out.
