🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <92310.095916KVJLC@ASUACAD.BITNET> Jon L. Campbell <KVJLC@ASUACAD.BITNET> writes:
>
>   I know this subject has probably been hacked to death, but I
>have been struggling with the concept of theme since reading what
>John Garner wrote in his guide for the beginning writer.  He points
>out that stories need a theme if they are to be effective(?), etc.
>
>   My problem with this, is that writing a story with a theme implies
>that every story has a moral to be told.  Or should have a moral, but
>I have problems with this concept because I believe that the essence of
>truth is chaotic.  

	Then that's your theme.  "Theme" and "moral" are not equivalent.

	(True, Gardner sometimes made "moral fiction" compulsory, but this is
a polemical view, certainly not a universally accepted one.  See, for instance,
the William Gass essay, "Beauty Knows Nothing of Goodness," for a contrary
view.)


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander