Theme and Elememt in a Short Story What is the Theme in a story and how does it relate to the body of the story? I would have to say that the Theme of a story relates to the over all polt of what is happing during the eniter story. In my opion if you had a TV show and it would have the main title and then there would be a Theme for each epoisod. The Theme would let the adduience know what the epoisod was about, but a lot of times you get the Theme at the end of the story when it all comes to getter. For example, in chaper 7,
Theme in fiction is associated with something abstract, something broad: The theme in a story is associated with an idea that lies behind the story. Every story narrows a broad underlying idea, shapes it in a unique way, and makes the underlying idea concrete. That's how theme is created. In other words, the theme in a story is a representation of the idea behind the story.
To identify a story's theme it's necessary to look beyond the plot. The plot tells you what happens in a story, but the theme tells you what the story is about. What you are required to do, therefore, in identifying theme is to answer the question, How? You should ask questions such as these: How does the writer use setting to narrow the underlying idea? How do characters make particular aspects of the underlying idea clear? How does conflict reveal the strength or worth of the underlying idea? (Clugston) The story of “A Worn Path” theme is in the strength of the woman as she faces adversity. It is from a third-person point of view, giving the reader just enough distance from the main character and her conflict, and to see aspects of conflict that she does not.
The plot of the story is by Phoenix Jackson, an elderly woman who travels a familiar path through the woods to town during Christmas. She is in a hurry to get medicine for her grandson and return to him, and she faces many obstacles over the course of the journey.
The tension of the story stems from the obstacles she encounters, which come from nature, society and herself, including barbed wire, a dog, a white hunter, and flashbacks or hallucinations that involve her grandson.
And to compare the Naritive polts of the story, containing elements of both nature and society. Jackson walks through the woods and into the town. These two setting are the different kinds of changes for her to overcome. In the woods, she faces the white hunter and the barbed wire, and in town she faces questions that she has trouble answering from the staff in the doctor’s office. The structure of the story shows how she faces and responds to the changes in present time, and the flashbacks show how she responds to thoughts about her grandson.
References
Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Saunders, J. R. (1992). “A worn path”: The eternal quest of Welty’s Phoenix Jackson. The Southern Literary Journal, 25(1), 62-73. Retrieved from JSTOR database.
