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Young Adult: Themes 1211 Views
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Description:
Everything you read has a theme. Even this blurb has a theme. What is it? If we told you, you might not be curious enough to watch this video, and that would be a shame because we worked really, really hard on it.
Transcript
- 00:00
Themes, a la Shmoop. What if a theme park… was really a theme
- 00:11
park?
- 00:12
You could ride a roller coaster that explores the loss of innocence.
- 00:16
Or take a terrifying ride up the Tower of Cultural Diversity.
- 00:19
Or maybe even go for a spin in the Teacups of Separation and Loss.
Full Transcript
- 00:25
Yeah, so maybe themes are better suited to stories and essays than amusement park rides.
- 00:30
At least you don’t have to be a certain height to read a book. Usually.
- 00:35
A theme is, quite simply, the central idea explored in any piece of writing.
- 00:40
You need a theme; otherwise… what’s the purpose of writing anything at all?
- 00:45
You’d just be left with a story that meanders between completely unrelated characters or
- 00:50
plot points…
- 00:50
…or a paper that ambles from one disjointed argument to another.
- 00:54
Your teachers have read stuff like that… trust us. They’re not superfans.
- 00:59
Okay, so… that definition of the word is a fairly broad one.
- 01:05
We can narrow our focus a bit by concentrating on universal themes.
- 01:09
A universal theme is one that pops up so often in many different books…
- 01:15
…that it must be a concept that people are wrestling with in some way.
- 01:19
Good versus Evil… and Coming of Age… are two universal themes, for example.
- 01:25
The theme of… carrots being difficult to eat…
- 01:28
…well, that one doesn’t get a lot of play.
- 01:31
In fact, we’re pretty sure you’re the only one who’s having that problem.
- 01:37
Not universal. A couple of biggies are Individual versus
- 01:42
Society…
- 01:43
…and Individual versus Self. Individual versus Society comes up whenever
- 01:50
there’s a struggle between what an individual wants…
- 01:52
…and what society demands of him.
- 01:55
Like… if someone is passionately opposed to wearing pants in public.
- 02:00
Individual versus Self involves a similar struggle…
- 02:03
…but one that is taking place within the individual.
- 02:07
There probably isn’t a character with any self-imposed pant-wearing laws…
- 02:11
…but… say there’s a character who has dreams of moving to the big city to try to
- 02:15
become a professional triangle player…
- 02:18
…but she’s not sure they can bear to leave their small town behind.
- 02:27
No one is forcing them to do one thing or the other…
- 02:29
…society’s demands have nothing to do with it…
- 02:32
…it’s completely a personal decision. And all of the turmoil comes from within.
- 02:38
These are just a couple of examples.
- 02:40
As long as you can find a few million people concerned about a given topic…
- 02:45
…you’ve got yourself a universal theme.
- 02:51
And good luck with the carrot thing.
- 02:52
That’s gotta be rough.
- 02:53
Especially with it being… roughage.
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