theme

Central topic, subject, or message within a narrative

Entityliterary element specialized termQ1053916

Also known as narrative theme

Instance of: literary element
, specialized term
Subclass of: artistic theme

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

In narratology, literary criticism, film studies, dramatics, and related disciplines, a theme is any major topic, subject, or message within a story. Themes are ideas that are central to a story, which can often be summed in a single abstract noun or noun phrase. A theme may be exemplified by the actions, utterances, or thoughts of characters, as in the theme of loneliness in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, wherein many of the characters seem isolated and long for community with others. It may overlap with a thesis: a text's or creator's central argument or position regarding a theme from the story.

Overview

All data

34 statements · 9% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Different from: Thema criterion used: descriptive page and disambiguation page have to be in different items · applies to name of subject: Thema
Tema criterion used: descriptive page and disambiguation page have to be in different items · applies to name of subject: tema
Theme criterion used: descriptive page and disambiguation page have to be in different items · applies to name of subject: theme
Teema criterion used: descriptive page and disambiguation page have to be in different items · applies to name of subject: teema
topic
theme
topic
Tema criterion used: descriptive page and disambiguation page have to be in different items · applies to name of subject: tema
Studied by: literary criticism
Said to be the same as: artistic theme
topic
stoff
Facet of: buzzword
text linguistics

On other databases

17 identifiers linking theme across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

externally sourced

Source last edited September 22, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). theme (Q1053916). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/theme-Q1053916