B. McDaniel
January 2005
Theme
Close your eyes for a moment and picture this scene: You are sitting in an English
class and the teacher is about to begin a discussion on the literary work you have been
reading. Perhaps you are even enjoying reading this particular novel, story, poem, or play.
But the teacher asks the fateful question: "Who can tell me the theme of this piece of
literature?" Suddenly you feel panic in the pit of your stomach. You look around the room at
your fellow students and see the blank looks that show they are sharing your boat. The
teacher is relentless, however, and repeats the question. Now it looks like all the students are
heading for nuclear meltdown and you think about Chernobyl. The teacher tries an alternate
route: "What lesson can we learn from Desdemona?" Someone hesitantly offers an idea, and
everyone quickly begins taking notes on everything that is written on the board. And so the
game of "Guess the Theme" continues until—with significant prompting from the teacher—
you have a set of notes to haul out for study before you take the test and your teacher
comfortably believes that you have discussed the relevant theme(s) of that work of fiction.
But are you really any closer to understanding theme than you were at the beginning of that
class period?
The problem is that students often have a very confused idea as to exactly what theme
is. If the teacher says, "What is this story about?" the students will readily provide an answer,
but they may not satisfy the teacher with the hoped-for answer because the responses will
most likely be plot summary or simple statements of the subject of the story. Or the teacher's
tactic might be to ask about the main idea of the story, which causes the students to sort
through what they have read and try to decide which aspect of the story impacted them most.
Without understanding of what theme is and how it works in literature, a reader can only play
a guessing game.
Defining Theme
Sven P. Birkerts says theme is the heart or soul of a work of fiction (71). It's that
concept that generates everything about the story. Laurence Perrine's definition is more
specific: "The theme of a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight. It is the
unifying generalization about life stated or implied by the story. To derive the theme of a
story, we must ask what its central purpose is: what view of life it supports or what insight
into life it reveals" (105). To illustrate his point, Perrine relates two jokes:
"Daddy, the man next door kisses his wife every morning when he leaves for
work. Why don't you do that?"
"Gracious, little one, I don't even know the woman."
"Daughter, your young man stays until a very late hour. Hasn't your mother
said anything to you about this habit of his?"
"Yes, father. Mother says men haven't altered a bit." (105)
In his explanation of these examples, Perrine says that the first joke achieves its comic effect
by use of a reversal—we expect the man to explain why he doesn't kiss his wife but, instead,
he explains why he doesn't kiss the neighbor's wife. But the second joke presents us with "a
truth about human life; namely, that men tend to grow more conservative as they grow older,
or that fathers often scold their children for doing exactly what they did themselves when
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young" (105). This idea of a "truth about human life" is the key to understanding theme. One
reason why students are often so fuzzy about what theme means is that they have been lead to
believe that theme is what the story is "about", or the author's message. This definition, while
technically accurate, is inadequate because it is woefully vague.
The Norton Introduction to Literature (7th edition) explores different ways of
explaining what a story is "about". The authors say that one person might tell you the subject
of the story, which would be a concrete idea; for example, in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, the subject could be expressed as "'a man's thoughts as he faces
execution for spying during the Civil War'" (211). Another person might give you a plot
summary, or a summary of the action of the work of fiction (Beaty & Hunter 211). But
theme is a generalization of the particular insight into human nature the story communicates
to the reader and tends to be more abstract than the subject. In fact, the subject of a story is
specific to that story (for example, the particular man and his thoughts), while the theme is
abstract enough to be applied more generally to human life.
Some readers will call a theme the "moral of the story," and occasionally those two
terms do mean the same thing. However, a moral is generally far too simplistic to convey the
overall theme of a work of fiction. Perrine says that "theme" is the term which encourages us
to think critically about a work:
First, it is less likely to obscure the fact that a story is not a preachment or a sermon: a
story's first object is enjoyment. Second, it should keep us from trying to wring from
every story a didactic pronouncement about life. The person who seeks a moral in
every story is likely to oversimplify and conventionalize it—to reduce it to some
dusty platitude like "Be kind to animals" or "Look before you leap" or "Crime does
not pay." (107-08)
Be careful, also, of attempting to pigeon-hole themes into categories. Categories are, by
definition, "so general as to be useless" (Birkerts 72), whereas themes are universal concepts
found in the "most important part of the human experience....love, hate, friendship, betrayal,
loss, fear, idealism, and on and on" (Birkerts 72).
The Relationship Between Theme and Composition
Let's go back for a moment to the game of "Guess the Theme". From these class
discussions, students can easily get the impression that "stories exist for their themes, that we
read only to get the 'point' or message" (Beaty & Hunter 212). Those of us who enjoy
reading for pleasure know that's not always the case; sometimes we just enjoy the story. But
often we choose to read stories that allow us to experience cultures and people which might
help us to more completely understand our own lives or how we fit into the universe. As
Birkerts says, "We may read literature for many reasons, but most often we do so to
experience meaning—to find out truths about human nature and to enrich our understanding
of the psychological and moral bases of our lives" (71). Indeed, a "writer's desire to
communicate some particular insight or feeling about the business of living" is almost always
the impetus for writing a work of fiction (Birkerts 71). And here is where the breakdown in
classroom communication usually occurs: because authors desire to communicate a specific
message, teachers tend to focus on that message, which leads students to believe that the
theme is the be-all and end-all of writing. Unfortunately, this method often makes students
feel that finding the deep and meaningful truth expressed in a story is, indeed, a guessing
game. As Beaty & Hunter say,
...most themes, you must admit, are somewhat less than earth-shattering....No wonder,
then, that some skeptics contend that stories are only elaborate ways of "saying
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something simple," that literature is a game in which authors hide their meanings
under shells of words....But articulating the theme of a story is neither the purpose of
nor the excuse for reading fiction, nor do authors hide their meanings like Easter eggs.
In order to relate his or her unique vision of reality to an absent and unknown reader,
a writer must find a way of communicating—some common ground on which to meet
the various unique individuals who will read the story. (212)
The fact that theme is generally "embedded" within a story can make identifying the
theme difficult for the reader who desires only to come up with an answer that will satisfy the
teacher. But Birkerts points out that "this embeddedness...is part of what makes the reading
of fiction worthwhile" (71). He illustrates the value of reading and digesting fiction with an
analogy:
There is a great difference between reading a story that explores the difficulty of love
and reading the message LOVE IS DIFFICULT in a fortune cookie. The
encapsulated message does not allow us to experience its truth—we either accept it or
we don't. The same truth, expressed in a story, has everything to do with specific
characters and situations. The meaning arises from the turns of the narration. We live
it in stages, and we are provided with a context for understanding. Usually, too, the
presentation is such that we have to draw connections and inferences for ourselves—
we earn what we learn. (71)
In other words, an author gets an idea for a story; some experience has allowed the writer to
have a flash of insight about human nature and s/he desires to share that knowledge with
others. But the journey to understanding is such a valuable experience that the writer wants
the reader to discover the insight for himself or herself. And so the author creates a set of
circumstances—the plot and the setting—and a set of people—the characters who perform
the actions in that specific place and time—to enable the reader to vicariously experience the
emotions of the characters and thus share the writer's insight. Just having someone tell us the
insight has no more impact on us than reading the message in the fortune cookie. We might
comment on how true that statement is, but we probably won't remember the next day what
was on the paper. Beaty & Hunter comment on the value of the journey of discovery when
they say that "the specifics of the story modify and enrich all the generalizations we can
abstract from it, while these themes and questions, if we recognize them, modify and enrich
our reading, our experience of the story" (213) As Birkerts says, "The value [of fiction] lies
in our process of confrontation and recognition. We make these ideas real by applying them
to our own lives" (72).
So, does every work of fiction have a theme? The simple answer is no. Some fiction
is simply written to entertain. I call this kind of story "mind candy"—it has no nutritional
value. That doesn't mean that this "commercial" fiction doesn't have its place on our
bookshelves. When I am reading for pleasure I often just want the writing to give me a good
story and fun characters, to entertain me without requiring me to do much beyond, through an
occasional passing comment, asking me to stop for a moment and think briefly about some
aspect of human life. This is the kind of reading that is relaxing because I don't have to work
hard for the experience. I devour "mind candy" but, if you ask me weeks or months later
about a particular book, I often barely recall reading it. I might remember that I thought the
plot was particularly intriguing or the characters quirky or the dialogue clever, but my
purpose in reading it was the enjoyment of the moment rather than enlightenment, and so the
book had little impact on me.
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But what Perrine labels interpretive fiction are those works that should be (and
generally are) packed with "nutritional value." They should require us to invest significant
effort in the reading and offer the reader much to think about concerning human nature.
Consider the distinction between these two kinds of fiction:
Commercial stories, for the most part, confirm their readers' prejudices, endorse their
opinions, ratify their feelings, and satisfy their wishes. Usually, therefore, the themes
of such stories are widely accepted platitudes of experience that may or may not be
supported by the life around us. They represent life as we would like it to be, not
always as it is. ... Interpretive writers, however, being thoughtful observers of life, are
likely to question these beliefs and often to challenge them. Their ideas about life are
not simply taken over ready-made from what they were taught in Sunday school or
from the books they read as children....Much of the process of maturing as a reader
lies in the discovery that there may be more nourishment and deeper enjoyment in
assimilating these somber truths than in licking the sugar off of candy valentines.
(Perrine 108-09)
Finding Theme
If the author wants the reader to take that journey of self-discovery in order to be
enlightened, then it stands to reason that theme is usually going to be implied rather than
directly stated in a work of fiction. The reader who hasn't invested enough of himself or
herself to have made that mental journey is going to feel as though s/he is looking for the
Easter eggs because s/he will not have devoted energy to consideration of the clues the author
has embedded in the work. It's not some mysterious process that a few gifted people are able
to perform, but it does require effort to "make the story yours" (Beaty & Hunter 212). In
order to do this, you must "reach out to the story and bring it back to you as an addition to
and modification of your own experience....[This] requires translating it somehow into terms
that, while not necessarily psychological or moral precepts, alter or broaden to some degree
your own vision of yourself, others, life in general" (Beaty & Hunter 212).
How do we figure out what the theme of a literary work is? Looking for answers to
the following questions can often lead you in the right direction:
1. How has the main character changed during the course of the story? What, if anything,
has s/he learned?
2. What is the nature of the central conflict of the story? What was the outcome of that
conflict?
3. How does the title relate to or comment on the story? (Perrine 110)
Even if one or more of these questions does help you to discover the theme that the
author wants to communicate, you must always consider your ideas in terms of Perrine's
principles of theme:
1.
Theme must be expressible in the form of a statement with a subject and a
predicate....[It] must be a statement about the subject....
2.
The theme must be stated as a generalization about life. In stating theme we do
not use the names of the characters or refer to precise places or events, for to do so is
to make a specific rather than a general statement....
3.
We must be careful not to make the generalization larger than is justified by the
terms of the story. Terms like every, all, always should be used very cautiously;
terms like some, sometimes, may are often more accurate....Only occasionally will the
theme of a story be expressible as a universal generalization....
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4.
Theme is the central and unifying concept of a story. Therefore (a) it must
account for all the major details of the story. If we cannot explain the bearing of an
important incident or character on the theme, either in exemplifying it or modifying it
in some way, it is probable that our interpretation is partial and incomplete, that at
best we have got hold only of a subtheme. Another alternative, though it must be
used with caution, is that the story itself is imperfectly constructed and lacks entire
unity. (b) The theme must not be contradicted by any detail of the story. If we have
to overlook or blink at or "force" the meaning of some significant detail in order to
frame our statement, we may be sure that our statement is defective. (c) The theme
must not rely upon supposed facts—facts not actually stated or clearly implied by the
story. The theme must exist inside, not outside, the story. It must be based on the
data of the story itself, not on assumptions supplied from our own experience.
5.
There is no one way of stating the theme of a story....
6.
We should avoid any statement that reduces the theme to some familiar saying
that we have heard all our lives, such as "You can't judge a book by its cover" or "A
stitch in time saves nine." Although such a statement may express the theme
accurately, too often it is simply the lazy man's shortcut, which impoverishes the
essential meaning of the story in order to save mental effort. When readers force
every new experience into an old formula, they lose the chance for a fresh perception.
Instead of letting the story expand their knowledge and awareness of the world, they
fall back fully on a cliché. (Perrine 110-112)
Remember that "thematic meaning is not a prize inside a box; it is, instead, at every
turn a function of interpretation. Themes and meanings exist, but in fiction as in life, they are
deeply embedded in the fabric of the work. The patient search for understanding is every bit
as valuable as the insights that reward the search" (Birkerts 81).
You may find it helpful to go through the following process as you formulate your
statement of the theme of a literary work. (This exercise and the examples given were
originally created by Jane Schaffer and Dixie Dellinger.)
A. Begin with this sentence frame:
_________________ is a story about _____________ .
B. Put the title of the story/novel/play/poem in the first blank space.
The Scarlet Letter is a story about ____________ .
C. In the second blank space, put a single word that says what the story is really about.
--Do not give plot summary, which would look like this:
The Scarlet Letter is a story about a woman who has a baby out of wedlock.
--Instead, use a word such as “hypocrisy”:
The Scarlet Letter is a story about hypocrisy.
Now, rewrite the sentence and fill in the second blank as many times as you have words to put in
there. A list of possible words for the sentence we’ve been using might look like this:
The Scarlet Letter is a story about
--hypocrisy
--sin
--redemption
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--revenge
--penance
--love
--jealousy
These words each reflect a theme of this book.
D. Now make phrases out of the words you’ve listed for the second blank, such as:
--the desire for revenge
--the scourge of jealousy
E. Consider what the piece of literature says about these words/phrases. For example:
Animal Farm by George Orwell is about the abuse of power.
What does the book say about the abuse of power? Once you can answer that question, you
have discovered a theme of the piece.
F. Use your words/phrases to write a thesis statement which reflects your answer to the
“about” question.
Notice that this exercise directs you to begin by identifying the categories of concepts
found in the book (step C), then to set limits on the categories (step D), and consider
what the author is commenting on specifically within each of those categories (step E).
At this point, you must examine each of the themes you have generalized by considering
Perrine's principles, and write your answer to the question of what the author is
commenting on about each concept in a clear, complete sentence. For step F, you
should choose one of the themes you have identified to formulate your thesis.
Theme Exercises
A. Read the following story and answer the questions.
(The story and the questions are taken from Literature, the Evolving Canon by Sven P. Birkerts, pages
81-84.)
House Opposite
by R. K. Narayan
The hermit invariably shuddered when he looked out of his window. The house
across the street was occupied by a shameless woman. Late in the evening, men kept coming
and knocking on her door—afternoons, too, if there was a festival or holiday. Sometimes
they lounged on the pyol of her house, smoking, chewing tobacco, and spitting into the
gutter—committing all the sins of the world, according to the hermit who was striving to
pursue a life of austerity, foreswearing family, possessions, and all the comforts of life. He
found this single-room tenement with a couple of coconut trees and a well at the backyard
adequate, and the narrow street swarmed with children: sometimes he called in the children,
seated them around, and taught them simple moral lessons and sacred verse. On the walls he
had nailed a few pictures of gods cut out of old calendars, and made the children prostrate
themselves in front of them before sending them away with a piece of sugar candy each.
His daily life followed an unvarying pattern. Birdlike, he retired at dusk, lying on the
bare floor with a wooden block under his head for a pillow. He woke up at four, ahead of the
rooster at the street corner, bathed at the well, and sat down on a piece of deerskin to
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meditate. Later he lit the charcoal stove and baked a few chapattis for breakfast and lunch
and cooked certain restricted vegetables and greens, avoiding potato, onion, okra, and such as
might stimulate the baser impulses.
Even in the deepest state of meditation, he could not help hearing the creaking of the
door across the street when a client left after a night of debauchery. He rigorously suppressed
all cravings of the palate, and punished his body in a dozen ways. If you asked him why, he
would have been at a loss to explain. He was the antithesis of the athlete who flexed his
muscles and watched his expanding chest before a mirror. Our hermit, on the contrary, kept a
minute check of his emaciation and felt a peculiar thrill out of such an achievement. He was
only following without questioning his ancient guru's instructions, and hoped thus to attain
spiritual liberation.
One afternoon, opening the window to sweep the dust on the sill, he noticed her
standing on her doorstep, watching the street. His temples throbbed with the rush of blood.
He studied her person—chiseled features, but sunk in fatty folds. She possessed, however, a
seductive outline; her forearms were cushion-like and perhaps the feel of those encircling
arms attracted men. His gaze, once it had begun to hover about her body, would not return to
its anchor—which should normally be the tip of one's nose, as enjoined by his guru and the
yoga shastras.
Her hips were large, thighs stout like banana stalks, on the whole a mattresslike
creature on which a patron could loll all night without a scrap of covering—"Awful monster!
Personification of evil." He felt suddenly angry. Why on earth should that creature stand
there and ruin his tapas: all the merit he had so laboriously acquired was draining away like
water through a sieve. Difficult to say whether it was those monstrous arms and breasts or
thighs which tempted and ruined men...He hissed under his breath, "Get in, you devil, don't
stand there!" She abruptly turned round and went in, shutting the door behind her. He felt
triumphant, although his command and her compliance were coincidental. He bolted the
window tight and retreated to the farthest corner of the room, settled down on the deerskin,
and kept repeating, "Omº, Om, Ramaº, Jayarama": the sound "Rama" had a potency all its
own—and was reputed to check wandering thoughts and distractions. He had a profound
knowledge of mantras and their efficacy. "Sri Rama...," he repeated, but it was like a dilute
and weak medicine for high fever. It didn't work. "Sri Rama, Jayarama...," he repeated with
a desperate fervor, but the effect lasted not even a second. Unnoticed, his thoughts strayed
questioning: Who was that fellow in a check shirt and silk upper cloth over his shoulder
descending the steps last evening when I went out to the market? Seen him
somewhere...where? when? ...ah, he was the big tailor on Market Road...with fashionable
men and women clustering round him! Master-cutter who was a member of two or three
clubs...Hobnobbed with officers and businessmen—and this was how he spent his evening,
lounging on the human mattress! And yet fashionable persons allowed him to touch them
with his measuring tape! Contamination, nothing but contamination; sinful life. He cried out
in the lonely room, "Rama! Rama!" as if hailing someone hard of hearing. Presently he
realized it was a futile exercise. Rama was a perfect incarnation, of course, but he was mild
and gentle until provoked beyond limit, when he would storm and annihilate the evildoer
without a trace, even if he was a monster like Ravana. Normally, however, he had
forbearance, hence the repetition of his name only resulted in calmness and peace, but the
present occasion demanded stern measures. God Siva'sº mantra should help. Did he not open
his Third Eye and reduce the God of Love to ashes, when the latter slyly aimed his arrow at
him while he was meditating? Our hermit pictured the god of matted locks and fiery eyes
ºOm: Hindu prayer invocation
ºRama: Hindu diety
ºSiva: Hindu diety
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and recited aloud: "Om Namasivaya," that lonely hall resounding with his hoarse voice. His
rambling, unwholesome thoughts were halted for a while, but presently regained their vigor
and raced after the woman. She opened her door at least six times on an evening. Did she
sleep with them all together at the same time? He paused to laugh at this notion, and also
realized that his meditation on the austere god was gone. "Om Namasivaya..." Part of his
mind noted the creaking of the door of the opposite house. She was a serpent in whose coils
everyone was caught and destroyed—old and young and the middle-aged, tailors and students
(he had noticed a couple of days ago a young B.Sc. student from Albert Mission Hostel at her
door), lawyers and magistrates (why not?)...No wonder the world was getting
overpopulated—with such pressure of the elemental urge within every individual! O God
Siva, this woman must be eliminated. He would confront her some day and tell her to get
out. He would tell her, "Oh, sinful wretch, who is spreading disease and filth like an open
sewer: think of the contamination you have spread around—from middle-aged tailor to B.Sc.
student. You are out to destroy mankind. Repent your sins, shave you head, cover your
ample loins with sackcloth, sit at the temple gate and beg or drown yourself in sarayu after
praying for a cleaner life at least in the next birth..."
Thus went his dialogue, the thought of the woman never leaving his mind, during all
the wretched, ill-spent night; he lay tossing on the bare floor. He rose before dawn, his mind
made up. He would clear out immediately, cross Nallappa's Grove, and reach the other side
of the river. He did not need a permanent roof; he would drift and rest in any temple or
mantap or in the shade of a banyan tree: he recollected an ancient tale he had heard from his
guru long ago...A harlot was sent to heaven when she died, while her detractor, a selfrighteous reformer, found himself in hell. It was explained that while the harlot sinned only
with her body, her detractor was corrupt mentally, as he was obsessed with the harlot and her
activities, and could meditate on nothing else.
Our hermit packed his wicker box with his sparse possessions—a god's image in
copper, a rosary, the deerskin, and a little brass bowl. Carrying his box in one hand, he
stepped out of the house, closing the door gently behind him. In the dim hour of the dusk,
shadowy figures were moving—a milkman driving his cow ahead, laborers bearing crowbars
and spades, women with baskets on their way to the market. While he paused to take a final
look at the shelter he was abandoning, he heard a plaintive cry, "Swamiji,"º from the opposite
house, and saw the woman approach him with a tray, heaped with fruits and flowers. She
placed it at his feet and said in a low reverential whisper: "Please accept my offering. This is
a day of remembrance of my mother. On this day I pray and seek a saint's blessing. Forgive
me..." All the lines he had rehearsed for a confrontation deserted him at this moment;
looking at her flabby figure, the dark rings under her eyes, he felt pity. As she bent down to
prostrate, he noticed that her hair was indifferently dyed and that the parting in the middle
widened into a bald patch over which a string of jasmine dangled loosely. He touched her
tray with the tip of his finger as a token of acceptance, and went down the street without a
word.
ºSwamiji: term of reverent address to a holy man
Questions
1. How do the hermit and the woman in the house opposite represent opposing values?
2. What details does Narayan use to characterize the hermit's life and the woman's?
3. The hermit is depicted as striving for absolute purity. Is there anything in Narayan's
presentation that suggests that he may have trouble realizing his aim?
4. How does the hermit see the woman? Is there anything about his focus that hints that his
disgust may not be absolute?
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5. What does Narayan's own attitude to his character seem to be? Does he admire him or
regard him critically, or is he neutral? Find a passage that supports your contention.
6. How does Narayan convey the struggle in the hermit's mind? Why do the hermit's
strategies seem to fail?
7. What is the message of the ancient tale that the hermit recollects?
8. Look closely at the encounter at the end of the story. What does the woman communicate
to the hermit and what is his reaction? What is Narayan saying about preconceptions and
about human compassion? Do you believe that his recognition is likely to change his
character?
9. Is Narayan finally passing judgment upon either austerity or so-called sinfulness?
10. Is there a single theme that you could extract from the story?
B. Read the following poem and answer the questions. (The poem is taken from Literature, the
Evolving Canon by Sven P. Birkerts, page 981.)
Father and Son
by Stanley Kunitz
Now in the suburbs and the falling light
I followed him, and now down sandy road
Whiter than bone-dust, through the sweet
Curdle of fields, where the plums
Dropped with their load of ripeness, one by one. (5)
Mile after mile I followed, with skimming feet,
After the secret master of my blood,
Him, steeped in the odor of ponds, whose indomitable love
Kept me in chains. Strode years; stretched into bird;
Raced through the sleeping country where I was young, (10)
The silence unrolling before me as I came,
The night nailed like an orange to my brow.
How should I tell him my fable and the fears,
How bridge the chasm in a casual tone,
Saying, "The house, the stucco one you built, (15)
We lost. Sister married and went from home,
And nothing comes back, it's strange, from where she goes.
I lived on a hill that had too many rooms:
Light we could make, but not enough of warmth,
And when the light failed, I climbed under the hill. (20)
The papers are delivered every day;
I am alone and never shed a tear."
At the water's edge, where the smothering ferns lifted
Their arms, "Father!" I cried, "Return! You know
The way. I'll wipe the mudstains from your clothes; (25)
No trace, I promise, will remain. Instruct
Your son, whirling between two wars,
In the Gemaraº of your gentleness,
For I would be a child to those who mourn
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And brother to the foundlingsº of the field (30)
And friend of innocence and all bright eyes.
O teach me how to work and keep me kind."
Among the turtles and the lilies he turned to me
The white ignorant hollow of his face.
Gemara: second part of the Talmud, the Jewish book of ancient rabbinical writings
foundlings: deserted children
Questions:
1. Who is the speaker of the poem?
2. What is the setting?
3. What appears to have happened to the sister?
4. What seems to be the significance of the reference to ponds (line 8)?
5. Where is the father?
6. How does the son feel about his father? (look at diction words/phrases such as "bonedust", "sweet curdle of fields", "the secret master of my blood", "the night nailed like an
orange to my brow", "smothering ferns", "the white ignorant hollow of his face")
7. How do the images of distance and vagueness contribute to the reflection of the modern
world in the poem?
8. How does the poet contrast innocence and hopelessness, as if the speaker wants to recover
his childhood?
9. What is the theme of the poem?
Bibliography
Beaty, Jerome and J. Paul Hunter. The Norton Introduction to Literature, Seventh Edition.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1998.
Birkerts, Sven P. Literature: The Evolving Canon. 2nd Edition. Needham Heights, MA:
Allyn & Bacon, 1996.
Perrine, Laurence. Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 4th Edition. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1983.
Becci McDaniel
January, 2005
<bmcdjfks@yahoo.com>