THEME AND TECHNIQUES IN A CREATIVE TEXT

CREATIVE NONFICTION

LIMITED FACE-TO-FACE LESSON 1

April 18, 2021

THEME AND TECHNIQUES IN A CREATIVE TEXT

MELC/s: Analyze the theme and techniques used in a particular text. (NO CODE)

Objectives:

1.    Discuss the theme and techniques in a creative text;

2.    Analyze the theme and techniques used in a particular text; and

3.    Write a brief/ a 3-minute monologue /spoken-word poetry applying the theme and techniques of a creative text.

 

LESSON CONTENT

I.                     THEME

The theme is a pivotal element, because it lingers throughout the entire story, from start to finish. It can be whatever the author deems appropriate, and there can also be more than one theme. Before we dive into several examples of theme in literature, let's start with a thorough review of this important element.

It's important not to confuse the theme and the main idea. The theme is an underlying message of bravery, or hope, or love, etc. The main idea, however, is simply what the story is about. In a way, the main idea is a tight summary of the plot.

How to Find the Theme

No story is complete without a few essential elements. They are:

• Characters - The people who take part in the action of the story
• Setting - Where the story takes place
• Plot - The events that make up a story
• Conflict - The struggle faced by the main character that must reach a resolution

At this point, you can also ask yourself, "What's the main idea? What's the short version of the story?" Once you're comfortable speaking on each of these elements, it's time to dive into the theme. These three questions will help you unearth it:

1. What problem is the main character facing?
2. What lesson did the main character learn?
3. What message can you take away from the story?

Once you hit that third question, you'll be well on your way to understanding the theme of the story.

Common Theme Examples

The more you read, the more you'll spot some of the popular literary themes. Common themes include:

• Compassion
• Courage
• Death and dying
• Honesty
• Loyalty
• Perseverance
• Importance of family
• Benefits of hard work
• Power of love
• Friendship
• Revenge
• Redemption

Of course, the list goes on and on. That's the beauty of artistic expression. A book's central theme can be anything the author chooses to focus on. Certainly, courage, death, friendship, revenge, and love are five themes that abound. Let's take a closer look at these common themes, as well as some interesting examples from popular works of fiction.

Courage

Courage is a wonderful theme to explore in writing. Life is full of difficult moments that must be surmounted, so why not draw inspiration from fictional and nonfictional characters in a piece of literature? It just may be the story that inspires someone else to push through the next challenge in life. Here are a few examples of courage in major works of literature:

• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway features characters who endure a difficult war and display honorable courage in nearly every instance.
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien tells the tale of a homely hobbit who sets off on an important quest.
• Iliad and Odyssey by Homer also maintain a war theme and the bravery that one must assume in order to survive.
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel tells the story of a young boy fighting to survive after a shipwreck in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding features a group of boys stranded on a deserted island, fighting to survive. Courage is just one of the book's central themes.
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy highlights the courage of the men fighting a war as well as the courage of the women who must make difficult decisions back on the homefront.

Death and Dying

Death is something everyone will face. It's packed with so much uncertainty. And, for those left behind, it leaves lingering feelings of sadness and, sometimes, even remorse. This can be a great theme if your goal is to tug at the heartstrings of your readers. Here are a few examples of death and dying in major works of literature:

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak features a narrator who is Death himself, as he takes lives throughout WWII in Germany.
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold explores death and grief from the perspective of a girl who was just murdered.
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green focuses on teenagers that must come to terms with their terminal illness.

Friendship

Valued friendships can completely alter one's life. It can sustain you through moments when you need to pull out all of your courage. It can bolster us when we're feeling down. And it's also a wonderful prize when celebrating life's special moments. Here are a few examples of the beauty of friendship in major works of literature:

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes tells the story of two men who, essentially, embark on an epic road trip. The ties that bond their friendship make all their adventures possible.
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling embraces the theme of friendship. In fact, every novel in the series hones in on this concept. Harry, Ron, and Hermione's unbreakable friendship is strong enough to allow them to stand up to even the greatest of sorcerers.
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton promotes the theme of friendship and how having someone to lean on can usher you through some of life's most pivotal moments.

Love

Of course, love can move the world. When two characters fall in love, they'll go to any lengths to stay together. It makes for an interesting story to see how love survives, despite all the curveballs the main characters might face. Here are a few examples of love in major works of literature:

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy focuses on love as a theme. What's interesting here is that love is displayed as both a destructive and productive force, both inside and outside the context of marriage.
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen explores the theme of love during a time when people didn't really date outside their social spheres. The two main characters give light to the theme of love and how, sometimes, it can conquer all.
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare also demonstrates how love can be such a driving force that, if love can't be had, nothing short of death will do.
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen explores the theme of love, demonstrating how, to have it, one must experience a bit of discomfort too.
• Wonder by R.J. Palacio focuses on love, but not necessarily romantic love. We see the love that the main character's family shows for him, as well as the differences between the friends who love him and the antagonists who give him a hard time.
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte explores the theme of love but where the two main characters are equally in love and at war with one another.

Revenge

Of course, the theme in a novel doesn't always have to be a positive thing. It can be a negative attribute that might inspire readers to take a better path in life. Here are a few examples of the detriments of revenge in major works of literature:

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas plays with the theme of revenge from nearly every angle and character viewpoint. It also plays on the theme of power because, as soon as the count takes a position of power, he doles out revenge to those who hurt him along the way.
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson features a main character who takes revenge on those who falsely accused her in the previous book in the series, The Girl Who Played with Fire.

• Macbeth by William Shakespeare features revenge as a theme because one of the characters, Macduff, makes many efforts to exact revenge on Macbeth after he learns of his family's death.\

II. TECHNIQUES IN A CREATIVE TEXT

A. FIGURES OF SPEECH aka. Figurative language is a tool that an author uses, to help the reader visualize, or see, what is happening in a story or poem. The following are the common types of figures of speech.

1.       Simile is a comparison using like or as. It usually compares two unlike objects. Example: His feet are as big as boats. Feet and boats are being compared.

2.       Metaphor states that one thing is something else. It is a comparison, but does NOT use like or as to make the comparison. Example: Her hair is silk. Hair and silk are being compared.

3.       Personification is giving human qualities, feelings, actions, or characteristics to inanimate (not living) objects. Example: The house stared at me with looming eyes. The verb, stared, is a human action. A house is a nonliving object. Therefore, we have a good example of personification.

4.       Hyperbole is intentionally exaggerated figures of speech used to create emphasis and/or evoke strong feelings. Example: The sea him lent those bitter tears.

5.       Onomatopoeia is the imitation of natural sounds in word form. These words help us form mental pictures, or visualize, things, people, or places that are described. Sometimes a word names a thing or action by copying the sound. Example: Bong!, Hiss…. Buzz!, Kablag! Vroom…

6.       Allusion - reference to another person, place, event, literary work, etc. Example: “No Second Jose Rizal”: “Was there another Rizal for them to shot?” the “them” alluding to Spaniards).

7.        Idiom - a common phrase or expression not to be taken literally. They are overused expressions. (Examples: beating around the bush, raining cats and dogs)

8.       Irony occurs when there's a marked contrast between what is said and what is meant, or between appearance and reality. Examples: "How nice!" she said, when I told her I had to work all weekend. (Verbal irony) The Titanic was said to be unsinkable but sank on its first voyage. (Situational irony) When the audience knows the killer is hiding in a closet in a scary movie, but the actors do not. (Dramatic irony)

9.       Assonance - in poetry, the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong (a, e, i, o, u, y) throughout a sentence, phrase, paragraph, or entire piece of writing. (e.g., penitence, reticence).

10.   Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant. There should be at least two repetitions in a row. Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. The first letter, p, is a consonant. Its sound is repeated many times.

11.   Consonance – repetition of same consonants (or consonant patterns) at the ends of words.

12.   Rhyme – the repetition of vowel sounds in neighboring words. Examples: pair/fair; mad/glad; sigh/ride.

13.   Near/Half Rhyme – the repetition of ending consonant sounds in nearby words; the consonant sounds are the same, but the vowel sounds are different. Examples: (chitter/chatter, bitter/platter, shaking/throbbing, quirk/lark)

14.   Anaphora - the repetition of words at the beginning of a clause. Example: In every cry of every human, in every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every freedom)

15.   Epistrophe - the repetition of words at the ending of a clause

“If you had known the virtue of the ring,

Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,

Or your own honor to contain the ring,

You would not then have parted with the ring.”)

B. LITERARY DEVICES. •      Also called LITERARY TECHNIQUES, literary methods or literary motifs.

•      These are the thumb, conventions or structures employed in literature (literary texts) and storytelling (narratives). The following are the common types:

1.  Aphorism - concise statement that contains a cleverly stated subjective truth or observation.

2.  Chekhov’s Gun - insertion of an apparently irrelevant object early in narrative for a purpose only revealed later.

3.   Cliffhanger - the narrative ends unresolved, to draw the audience back to a future episode for the resolution.

4.   Defamiliarization - forcing the reader to recognize common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, to enhance perception of the familiar.

5.   Dramatic - representing an object or character with abundant description.

6.   Visualization - detail, or mimetically rendering gestures and dialogue to make a scene more visual or imaginatively present to an audience.

7.   Epiphany - a sudden revelation or insight-usually with a symbolic role in the narrative.

8.   Flashback - general term for altering time sequences, taking characters back to the beginning of the tale, for instance.

9.    Flashforward - also called prolepsis, an interjected scene that temporarily jumps the narrative forward in time.

10.   Foreshadowing - hinting at events to occur later.

11.   Juxtaposition - using two themes, characters, phrases, words, or situations together for comparison, contrast, or rhetoric.

12.   Paradox - a phrase that describes an idea composed of concepts that conflict.

13.   Parody - ridicule by overstated imitation of the original material, usually humorous

14.   Poetic License - distortion of fact, altercation of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by a writer to improve a piece of art.

15.   Stream of Consciousness - technique where the author writes down their thoughts as fast as they come.

16.   Symbolism - applied use of symbols: iconic representations that carry particular conventional meanings and it occurs when one thing stands for or represents something else. Example: The dove symbolizes peace.

17.   Imagery involves one or more of your five senses – the abilities to hear, taste, touch, smell, and see. An author uses a word or phrase to stimulate your memory of those senses and to help create mental pictures.

18.   Ticking Clock - threat of impending disaster - often used in thrillers scenario where salvation and escape are essential elements.

19.   Tone - author’s attitude towards the audience, the subject, or the character. The reflection of the poet’s attitude toward the subject of a poem. It can be serious, sarcastic, humorous, etc.

20.   Mood - the feeling the reader gets from a fiction writing. The feeling or atmosphere that a poet creates.  It can suggest an emotion (ex. “excited”) or the quality of a setting (ex. “calm”, “somber”) In a poem, mood can be established through word choice, line length, rhythm, etc.

21.   Motif - a unifying element in an artistic work: any recurrent item, etc.

22. Connotation - the emotional and imaginative association surrounding a word from its literal meaning. An idea that is implied or suggested. Ex: She’s feeling blue.-means sadness

23. Denotation - the strict dictionary meaning of a word.

24. Breaking the Fourth Wall – the actors suddenly talk to the audience or responds to audience reaction, or the sudden participation of the audience in the play (IN DRAMA).

III.        SPOKEN-WORD POETRY VS MONOLOGUE (as creative texts)

      SPOKEN WORD POETRY is a form of poetry that doesn't have to rhyme, but certain parts can be rhymed to emphasize an image or give it a lyrical quality. Spoken word poems will sometimes contain elements of hip-hop, folk music, or jazz to enhance the rhythmic presentation.

      MONOLOGUE – (in Tagalog drama) NO SPECIFIC LENGTH. - LONG FORM (UPTO 2 HRS), - FOR AUDITION (3 MINUTES), - TO SHOWCASE ACTING PROWESS (1MIN)

·         2 TYPES OF MONOLOGUES BASED ON HOW THE ACTOR DELIVERS IT

1. INTERNAL MONOLOGUE – WHEN THE ACTOR EXPRESSES HIS INNERMOST THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS.

2. DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE – THE ACTOR IS TALKING TO ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL; MAY IT BE AN IMAGINARY CHARACTER OR A PART OF THE AUDIENCE.

 

INDIVIDUAL FORMATIVE ACTIVITY

Directions. Read the text mindfully and analyze the theme and techniques used by completing the given table.

SHORT ESSAY ON LIFE (CREATIVE TEXT)

Article shared by 

Life is beautiful but not always easy, it has problems, too, and the challenge lies in facing them with courage, letting the beauty of life act like a balm, which makes the pain bearable, during trying times, by providing hope

Happiness, sorrow, victory, defeat, day-night are the two sides of the me coin. Similarly, life is full of moments of joy, pleasure, success and comfort punctuated by misery, defeat, failures and problems. There is no human being on Earth, strong, powerful, wise or rich, who has not experienced, struggle, suffering or failure.

No doubt, life is beautiful and every moment – a celebration of being alive, but one should be always ready to face adversity and challenges. A person who has not encountered difficulties in life can never achieve success.

Difficulties test the courage, patience, perseverance and true character of a human being. Adversity and hardships make a person strong and ready to face the challenges of life with equanimity. There is no doubt that there can be no gain without pain. It is only when one toils and sweats it out that success is nourished and sustained.

Thus, life is and should not be just a bed of roses; thorns are also a part of it and should be accepted by us just as we accept the beautiful side of life.

The thorns remind one of how success and happiness can be evasive and thus not to feel disappointed and disheartened rather remember that the pain of thorns is short-lived, and the beauty of life would soon overcome the prick of thorns.

Those, who are under the impression that life is a bed of roses are disillusioned soon and become victims of depression and frustration. One who faces difficulties with courage and accepts success without letting it go to its head is the one who experience real happiness, contentment and peace in life.

Those, who think, that good times last forever, easily succumb to pressure during difficulties. They do not put in required hard work and efforts because they break down easily.

You can take the example of a student, who burns the mid night oil, makes sacrifices and resists temptations so that he can perform well. Similarly, a successful executive has to face the ups and downs of life, not forgetting that life is a mix of success and failure, joy and sorrow.

If he loses hope during difficult times, he would not achieve success and would be replaced by others. Even the strongest Kings and Emperors have had their cup of woes.

Life has not been a bed of roses for them. The adage ‘Uneasy lays the head that wears the crown’ has been rightly used for people, who are successful and are enjoying power and authority.

To sum up, life is beautiful just as roses but it has challenges which are like thorns and have to be faced and overcome by all. Those, who accept these, challenges and succeed, are the ones, who know how to live life in its true sense. Thus, enjoy life but also be prepared to bear the pricks of pain.

 

TABLE OF ANALYSIS

1.    THEME

 

2.    FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE USED

Specific Word/s or Line/s	Specific Figures of Speech Used

 

3.    LITERARY TECHNIQUES

Specific Word/s or Line/s	Specific Literary Techniques Used

 

EVALUATION:

Write a brief or a 3-minute monologue/ spoken-word poetry applying the theme and techniques of a creative text.

RUBRICS

Monologue/Spoken Word Poetry: 15

Creativity: 15

Analyzed Theme Used: 10

Analyzed Techniques Used: 10

TOTAL: 50

 

Home-Based Activity: The brief Monologue/Spoken Word Poetry presentation may be video-recorded as Take-home task explicating the theme and the techniques used thru Table Analysis to be presented in Day 2. Written copy will be submitted.

Credits to the rightful owner/author.

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