【正文】 at at he end the st or y is enti r el y conf ined t o the ol der wai ter’ s t hought s and percepti ons. How do we under st and his medi at ion on “nada, ” not hi ngness, whi ch bear s so much emphasi s? No good statem ent of t he t hem e of t he story can l eave i t out. Then we have st il anot her t ry: “Solit ar y peopl e need a pl ace of r ef uge fr om thei r t er ri bl e awareness t hat thei r lif e (or per haps, human l if e) is esenti al ly m eani ngl ess. ” Neit her this nor any ot her statem ent of t he story’s t hem e is unarguably appr opri at e, but t he st at em ent at least ouches one prim ar y idea t hat Hemi ngway seems t o be dri vi ng at. Aft er we r ead “A Cl ean, Wel Lighted Pl ace, ” we feel t hat t here i s such a t hem e, a uni fying visi on, even though we cannot reduce i t o a tag and we m ay sti l var y in our opi ni on about, and statem ent of , the t heme. Moral i nf erences drawn f rom m ost st ories: Mor al inferences m ay be drawn fr om m ost stori es, no doubt, even when an author does not i nt end hi s/ her st or y to be read t hi s way. I n “A Clean, Wel l Li ghted Place”, we f el t hat Hemi ngway i s indi rect ly giving us advi ce f or proper ly r egar di ng and sym pat hi zi ng t he l onel y, t he uncert ai n, and t he old. But obvi ously t he story does not set fort h a leson t hat we ar e supposed to put i nt o pr acti ce. We can say f or sur e t hat “A Cl ean, Wel Li ghted Pl ace” cont ai ns several t hemes and ot her st at ements could be m ade t o t ake in Hemingway’s view of l ove, of muni cati on bet ween peopl e, of di gnit y. Great stori es, l ike gr eat symphonies, fr equentl y have mor e than one t heme. When we say that the ti tle of Pr ide and Prejudice conveys t he t heme of t he novel or that Uncl e Tom’ s Cabin and The Grapes of Wr at h tr eat he t hemes of sl avery and mi gr at ory labor r espect ivel y, this i s to use theme in a larger and mor e abst ra ct sense t han it is i n our di scussion of case t he novel ist i nt ends t o point out the profound cause of Gat sby’s tragedy. Dr. Watson in the st ories of Sher lock Holmes serves as afoil to t he hero, r ender ing the detective smar ter t han he would other wise appear to the reader. By the degree of their devel opment , charact ers can be grouped as round characters and flat characters. This division is proposed by Forster. Round characters are f ully developed while f lat charact ers are not . Or we can say t hat round charact ers gr ow whi le f lat charact ers do not. Usual ly t he r eader is alowed acces t o the inner lif e of t he r ound charact er and permit ted to learn about many sides of the round character. The flat character is a“closed” charact er to whose inner t houghts the reader is denied access. Usualy one si de of the flat char acter is shown in t he novel. Most heroes are round characters who grow emot ional y or spi rit ual y. Chapt er Three Theme Ari st ot le in Poetics lists six basic elements of tragedy. Melody (song) and di ct ion (language) fal in t he general cat egor y of style, and spect acle is r el evant to set ti ng i n our di scussion of fi ct ion. The ot her three aspects ar e mythos or pl ot , ethos or charact er , and di anoia, which we gener al ly tr anslate into “thought” in Engl ish. Acording to Ar ist ot le, pl ot is the “soul” or shaping pr inci ple or f iction, and charact er s exist pri mar il y as funct ions of the pl ot . I n most of t he stori es, plot pl ays the role of pr inci pal st ruct ur e of t he story. But, as Nor throp Fr ye points out , be si des the internal f iction of t he char acter and hi s/ her society, t here i s an ext er nal ficti on consisting of a relation bet wen the writ er and t he wr it er ’s society. We i ndeed have li terary works by t he l ikes of Shakespear e and Homer in which arti st ry is pl et el y absorbed in their internal char acters and we can hardly per ceive the exi stence of the author. However, as soon as the author’ s personalit y appears on the hor izon, a r elat ion wit h the reader i s establ ished, and som eti mes t here sems no stor y at al l apar t from what he author is conveyi ng t o hi s/ her reader . I n this case, t he pri mar y i nt er est i n di anoia, t he i dea or t hought that reader gets f rom the wri ter, whi ch i n modern cri ticism we generaly cal “t heme”. I. What Is Theme? One of the safest ments to make about novel s is on t he t heme. Ever yone is ent itl ed t o extr act a theme based upon hi s understandi ng of the novel . Theme may be the most democrati c el ements in l iterature, because i ts def initi on i s the least r estr ictive. The theme of a novel is i ts control ling idea or it s cent ral i nsight. Bei ng an idea or an i nsight, the theme should be abstract and it shoul d gener ali ze about lif e. Labeled as contr olli ng or central, the theme shoul d be capabl e of uni fying the whole novel. So t he t heme of a story, then, is whatever general i dea or i nsight t he ent ir e stor y reveal s. I . Cl ar if cati on about Theme Common as i t i s, theme suff er s so me misunder st andi ngs. One misconception about theme is that each novel has a t heme or t hemes, or t heme is import ant to al l novel s. In f act, some novels, int er esting ones though, do not provi de any insi ght into li fe. For exampl e, many novel s of r at ioci nati on and novel s of hor ror. These novels are aimed at ent er taining the reader, not at improving hi s under st anding of li fe. They may someti mes t ouch upon t he human nature or soci al probl ems, but these issues are only used to push the plot f or war d and they ar e not menti oned for thei r own val ue. Theme exists onl y in the novel t hat seri ousl y at tempt s to refl ect lif e fait hf ul ly or intends to r eveal tr ut h about li fe, or in the novels that are based on i deas or theori es of lif e.