Understanding Theme in Literature

What is theme in a text?

• Lesson or moral of story

• Central idea

• Evidence

• Ideas and Events

What usually happens to characters when dealing with theme?

• Die

• Find the main idea

• Change and Grow

• Look for Evidence

Which statement best illustrates an overall theme from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 5"?

• Despite apparent loss, the essence of beauty transcends superficial changes.

• Not even beauty can resist the damaging effects of the passage of time.

• The fact that all things eventually perish is the source of the beauty of the present.

• Because time changes all things, one must consider what the future might bring.