common themes in literature

We all love a good story, and when we find a new favorite, we can't wait to tell our friends about it. When we explain why we love it and get beyond the basics of narrative, we often touch on the concept of literary themes. Setting tells where a story happens, characters tell who the story's action happens to, and plot tells what happens. A work's theme, however, doesn't just describe parts of what make up a story, but instead gets to the why of that story—its purpose. 

There are almost always themes—often several—in poetry, drama, and nonfiction, as well as novels and stories. Themes help us understand why a work is significant, how it relates to others, and illuminates ideas about identity, culture, and history. 

Let's take a deeper look at why literary themes matter and review some of the most common one you’ll find in literature.  

What Is a Theme in Literature?

“Theme" refers to a literary work's subject beyond the circumstances it describes, projecting an underlying meaning to readers. For example, while Homer's ancient Greek epic poem The Illiad is "about" the battle between Greeks and Trojans during the Trojan War, one of its key themes is revenge. This is because much of the epic centers on the Greek warrior Achilles' attempt to avenge the death of his companion Patroclus. When we read The Illiad, we naturally think about what role revenge plays in our own lives.

What Themes Help Us Understand About Literature

Literary themes help us understand literature on a deeper level by highlighting connections and commonalities between literary works. For instance, when we consider a novel like Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games in terms of the subject of dystopian societies, we can compare it to works like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World or Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. 

Because of this, themes help us discover broad ideas within a body of literature, a time period, a culture, a genre, and so on. We can view Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre in relation to the subjects of coming of age and gender, which in turn can be a window into thinking about the role of women and the possibilities available to them in 19th-century British society. By considering broad ideas through universal themes, we can also see how literature matters to our own lives. 

Why Authors Use Literary Themes

Themes help readers define and discuss the basic message of a literary work. On the other hand, when authors think of their works in these terms, it helps them focus on what they want readers to take away from their text. In this way, theme functions as a powerful literary element or device. Of course, the greatest works of literature are rich and complex and can involve many layers of meaning and multiple themes, including those that the author might not have even thought about.

Common Themes in Literature

When you think about your favorite stories, they probably "speak" to you in some way. Perhaps there’s a character's struggle that you strongly identify with or a focus on a topic that matters to you, like identity, family, or politics. Authors focus on many of the same popular themes across cultures and history because they speak to the common human experience and human nature. The most familiar themes tend to be ones that many people can identify with in some way. 

Let's look at some examples of significant themes in English literature. 

Coming of Age

Some of the most gripping stories describe the personal development of a character over time. Coming of age stories, as they are known, share how a character faces and grows from challenging experiences. Coming of age stories are common across cultures, genres, and history because so many people experience the struggle to discover their "real" selves and to assert their own independent identities.

For instance, James Baldwin's novel Go Tell It on the Mountain tells the story of John Grimes, a young man who was raised in a strictly religious household. Over the course of the novel, we learn how Grimes comes to confront the impact of his overbearing household, his religious upbringing, his identity as a Black man, and his emerging sexuality as he attempts to realize his identity as an adult and come to terms with his past. 

Courage

Stories exploring the theme of courage are often exciting and dramatic because they depict characters displaying heroism in the face of dangerous, fearsome, or complex obstacles.

J.R.R. Tolkein's stories of Middle Earth, such as The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, are well-known examples depicting courage. In The Hobbit, for example, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, and a band of dwarves are on a quest to recover the vast treasure guarded by the fearsome dragon Smaug. While the obstacle in this case might be larger than life, the universal significance of the theme is clear: Literary works like The Hobbit express the main idea that even when problems seem insurmountable, humans can muster the courage to succeed.

Good Versus Evil

This theme uses the classic dramatic scenario of a good character pitted against an evil character or dark force that they must overcome. Good versus evil raises powerful questions about truth, justice, and the ability to overcome wrongdoing. Often characterized by larger-than-life representations of evil—monsters, villains, and the like—the theme speaks symbolically to the more everyday manifestations of evil we encounter every day. 

It is evident in works as familiar as the Harry Potter series, which depicts Harry and his close wizarding friends in their attempt to stop the evil wizard Voldemort. Another classic example of the good versus evil theme in literature is Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll, who has developed a way to split his personality into two distinct personalities (one good and one evil), must try to overcome his evil alter ego, Mr. Hyde, who becomes increasingly powerful. In this way, the novel explores the idea of good versus evil to consider the darkness inside people that may be present alongside the good. 

Humans Versus Society 

Sometimes the conflicts represented in creative writing aren't between one character and another, but rather between a character or group of people against society as a whole. History shows that individuals sometimes have to struggle against the political, legal, domestic, and other constraints that might restrict freedom. Writers explore these real-life challenges in many works of literature. 

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for instance, the protagonist Offred and other women fight to find identity and overcome oppression in a radically restructured society in which the majority of women are forced to become the property, servants, and reproductive surrogates for a small ruling class. Works exemplifying the theme of humans versus society speak to us because they provide an opportunity to consider these kinds of problems and how we would react to or prevent them. 

Humans Versus Nature

Humans are often at conflict with themselves, but often stories can describe the struggles presented by the awesome and sometimes terrifying forces of nature. Jack London's classic short story "To Build a Fire" is a powerful exploration of this common theme. In London's story, the unnamed narrator is traveling alone in Alaska during a harsh winter, accompanied only by his husky dog. Facing severe cold and frostbite in the wilderness, the narrator attempts to build a fire but fails, ultimately dying in the wilderness.

Nature can be destructive, and some stories provide a way to reflect on how humans attempt to survive nature's threats. Other, more ecologically minded literary works take this in another direction, urging us to think about how human society can be at odds with or destructive to nature and what we can do to live in harmony with the Earth. 

Love

One of the most celebrated themes in literature involves the bonds between people and the romantic attraction they feel for each other. Love poems, romance novels, and similar works provide an opportunity to think about the wonder of feeling passion for another person. Other works explore the heartaches that can result when love goes wrong, as in the unrequited love of Heathcliff for Catherine Earnshaw in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights or the doomed star-crossed lovers in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Love poems like Elizabeth Barret Browning's Sonnet 43 ("How do I love thee") are also excellent examples of the theme of love in literature. Browning's sonnet begins "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," and then it lists a range of things the speaker loves about the addressee of the poem. 

Family

The complexities of relationships within families, as well as the potential strength of its bonds, make this one of the most compelling and relatable themes in literature. Some literary works explore the impact that familial relations can have on individuals. As Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina famously begins, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Other works concentrate on showing how the bonds of families can both endure and evolve over time. Yaa Gyasi's novel Homegoing tells the story of an Akan family across seven generations, tracing its roots in Africa through the slave trade to the 20th century civil rights movement in America. Homegoing depicts a family that is split on account of the trauma of slave trade, but also how members of the family in Africa and those in America rediscover each other and reflect on their long separation and shared trauma. 

Power and Corruption

Some works of literature will examine political ideas, whether to meditate on historical events or to think about the possibilities of the future. Literature can use its imaginative qualities to consider what can happen when political ideas go well—or horribly wrong. 

For example, George Orwell's novel Animal Farm is an excellent example of a central theme of power and corruption at work. This work, centered around a group of anthropomorphic animals, begins with the animals having the noble intentions of overthrowing the cruel farmer who owns them and establishing their own society in which animals are treated as equals. Once the animals have the power over the farm, however, their good intentions give way to greed, arguments, and violence. Ultimately, a dictator pig, Napoleon, takes over. Orwell's novel makes the point that unfettered access to power can lead to corruption.

Gender

Works of literature can offer a powerful way to explore questions of identity, including race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, religious belief, and much more—as well as intersections of any of these. There is a strong history of literature that considers the theme of gender, whether to examine the position and possibilities of gender within society or to consider the very idea of gender itself. 

Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness, for instance, presents a hypothetical situation in which characters have a biology by which they may shift back and forth between genders while keeping other aspects of their identity. In this way, the novel prompts readers to consider how ideas about gender impact the ways that gender is perceived within culture, as well as the ways in which ideas about gender impact culture. 

Redemption

The idea of a character who has fallen because of a mistake, curse, loss, or other woe pulling through challenges to emerge redeemed is a compelling literary theme centered on the idea of hope. Since we're all imperfect, literary works exploring the theme of redemption convey an idea that can really resonate: We all have the chance to make up for our mistakes or failures and live a renewed life. 

The theme of redemption is evident in a story as familiar as Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," in which the greedy, spiteful Ebeneezer Scrooge transforms into a generous, caring person after meeting spirits that cause him to reflect on his past, present, and future. Likewise, Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment famously shows the young student Raskolnikov go from senselessly murdering an old woman for money to becoming a repentant, renewed man after being plagued by guilt and then confessing his crime. 

Other Examples of Themes in Literature

Those are just a few common literary themes. Some others include:

• Change versus tradition 
• The circle of life
• Colonialism
• Community
• Courage and perseverance 
• Death
• Disillusionment  
• Environment
• Faith versus doubt 
• Fate versus free will 
• Female roles 
• Friendship 
• Hubris
• Humans versus the self
• Identity
• Immortality 
• Injustice
• Knowledge and ignorance
• Loneliness 
• Loss of innocence 
• Motherhood 
• Nationalism 
• Nature 
• Overcoming 
• Poverty 
• Prejudice
• Rebellion 
• Religion
• Revenge 
• Rural versus city life
• Self-awareness 
• Social class
• Social mobility 
• Survival 
• Technology 
• The will to survive 
• Totalitarianism 
• Tradition
• Tragedy 
• War 

Other Resources for Themes in Literature

Of course, this is just scratching the surface when it comes to the wide range of literary themes. SuperSummary's large library of related articles, Literary Devices and Genre Resources, can help you discover more about major themes in literature and how they inform our understanding of literary works.