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Theme and Elements of a Story

Decent Essays

Theme and Elements of a Short Story

Joe Smith
ENG 125
Matthew Minicucci
Oct 6, 2011

Theme and Elements of a Short Story Many stories are written to serve the purpose of entertaining the readers. They also contain themes. These themes can sometimes be a lesson or be something for the reader to take away and remember. Authors often times use symbols within the story to help tell the story and reinforce what the theme of the story is intended to suggest. A short story that was provided within the book, “Journey into Literature” really did a wonderful job providing a theme and using symbols to drive home a certain theme. The story was called, …show more content…

A person who is alive would likely not see the sky as a glassy type view. If the day sky was blue and clear, a person would see it as a nice day and would not notice anything else. By describing the sky as glassy, the reader begins to sense a difference and the reader can begin to understand what is being conveyed. Another symbol that is used in the story which is used as final symbol to give the reader a final answer on what is happening is the description the children use in the air. The children say that the air has become cold all of a sudden. It is a well known belief that when ghosts or spirits are in the presence of human, he or she gets a feeling of chill or a sense of cold. This indicates in the story that the woman is a ghost and makes it easier on the reader to follow along with the theme of the story. Themes of stories are essential and not only do authors wish to convey a theme so do others involved in story telling. Stories are often translated to film. Along with the story, a theme will follow onto film. Film makers often want to achieve exactly what the authors want to achieve in expressing a theme. Steven Spielberg once made a speech urging filmmakers to use cinema as a means for exploring ideas and important themes
(American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations, 2007, page 10). This shows that themes are a very important part of story telling

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