Clue 3

What is a literary theme? 3 examples of truth about the universal human experience.
What is the theme of your life, as you see it right now?
In your opinion, what is the theme of God's plan for this world?
How can you figure out a theme in a short story?

1.

1. Title: Look into the title and think about what it is trying to tell us. Don’t just look at the basic meaning of it but think it through.
2. Character: We need to observe characters careful to be able to understand the theme. We need to dig through characters’ both internal and external conflicts.
3. Climax: We need to find out the climax of the story. We need to try to find out what author is trying to show us.
4. Resolution: We need to try to seek through if there are any relations to life, social, or human nature.

This is another way of finding out theme of the story:

Step 1
Begin the search for the literary theme by thinking about what the story is really about. Read the title. Get an initial sense of the topic and message.
Step 2
Look for a unifying idea within the story as you read it. Identify events that define the topic and events that contribute to this topic.
Step 3
Seek out central ideas such as the struggle against nature, the bonds of family, a child coming of age or other common themes in literature.
Step 4
Identify the actions of the characters and how they affect or define the central topic. Look for dialogue and actions that contribute to the most basic idea of the book.
Step 5
Determine a secondary theme, which is often present in a complex story. Look to the subject matter, storyline and characters to find the secondary theme as well.
Step 6
Think about the impression the book has on you. Identify the main idea, and compare that to the literary themes you identified from the story. Reflect upon what point the author tries to make, and how effective the story was at making that point.
(http://www.ehow.com/how_2078383_understand-literary-themes.html)

2. I think theme of "The Utterly Perfect Murder" is that some events could be painful to someone else even though you don't feel anything. I think this is the theme of this story because Ralph was having more pain while Doug thought that he had too much pain. This theme can be related to my personal experience. When I was 7 years old, one of my friend hit me accidentally with his arm. I was really mad at him because I was in such a pain. The day after, I was going to hit him back but I stopped. I saw him crying at the corner of the kindergarten room. He looked so miserable. By this, I realized that even though I was physically hurt, my friend was mentally hurt and he looked like he was having much harder time then me.

3. Moral and theme are different concept. Definition of moral is expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior. This means that moral is what author is trying to teach readers from the story. However, definition of theme is a subject of story, discussion, meditation, or composition. This means that theme is topic of the story. This tell us that moral is much more close to teaching while theme is closer to the subject or the topic of a story. For example, in the short story called "The Most Dangerous Game" the moral can be "do not kill innocent animals." However, theme of the story is "Human selfishness can cause destruction of the environment." As you can see, theme is closer to explanation than teaching while moral is closer to teaching than explanation.

4. John 3:16, it says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." I think this is the theme statement of the God's story because God loves us. That is the reason why he sent his only Son, Jesus, to save us from the sins. This can be related to the literature. Love reveals truth about the universal human experience because every human experiences love. It is natural thing that people love other people. For example, you can find love in "The Utterly Perfect Murder." In the childhood of Doug and Ralph, Doug loved Ralph as a friend. I think this is the reason why this can be related to the truth I might find in the literature.