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Themes and context
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Themes are the big ideas a text explores. Context is the world the text came from. Both help you answer the WHY question, which earns the highest marks.
Topic or theme?
A topic is what something is about in one word: ambition, love, power, class, guilt.
A theme is what the writer suggests about that topic: 'Unchecked ambition destroys people.'
Track a theme from beginning to middle to end: how does the writer develop it?
A theme is what the writer suggests about that topic: 'Unchecked ambition destroys people.'
Track a theme from beginning to middle to end: how does the writer develop it?
Context: the time behind the text
Context means the time, place and society in which a text was written and first read or watched, and the writer's own life.
Link context, do not bolt it on
Bolted on (weak): 'Dickens was born in 1812. Victorian times were hard.'
Linked (strong): 'Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843, when many poor people lived in desperate poverty, so Scrooge's early coldness towards the poor would have struck readers as a criticism of attitudes of the time.'
Context should always explain something IN the text.
Linked (strong): 'Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843, when many poor people lived in desperate poverty, so Scrooge's early coldness towards the poor would have struck readers as a criticism of attitudes of the time.'
Context should always explain something IN the text.
Turn the topic 'power' into a theme statement for any text you know, then explain how you would track it.
- Topic: power.
- Theme statement: for example, 'Power can corrupt the people who seek it.'
- Track it: how does the writer show power at the start, at a turning point and at the end?
Answer: Theme: 'Power can corrupt those who seek it', tracked through the beginning, a turning point and the ending.
A theme is the writer's idea about a topic. Context is the world behind the text. Always link context to a specific moment or choice in the text.
The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.
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