ShmoopTube

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And here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by hero sandwiches not to

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be confused with super hero sandwiches which are really hard to get your mouth [Man eating a sandwich with Batman, WonderWoman and Superman inside]

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around all right which is an example of a theme and here the potential answers

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.... Okay since we're

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looking for a theme how about a theme song.. Nah, okay forget it no [Fresh Prince in a chair]

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theme song moving on for starters what is a theme well basically it's something

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that the author doesn't come right out and tell us but instead implies through

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the actions in the story like say you're reading a story about a character who [A book opens and a boy looking scared appears]

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was trying to get to school on the day of a big test but has all kinds of

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obstacles thrown in his way bullies, a missed bus, a snowstorm, vampires hey why

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not it's fiction right but no matter what he finds a way to pull 30 conquer [Man conquering vampire and bullies stood on a school bus]

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the obstacles and succeed the writer may never use the word perseverance but we

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can still tell that it's a major theme in our story all right so with that in [Book stamped with theme]

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mind which of our answer choices is a good example of a theme first up option

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A) the hero triumphs over the villain well here we have to be careful not to

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confuse theme with an action or an event the hero triumphing over the villain is [Two people playing chess in a park]

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something that happens in the story but it's not a theme if for example it said

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good will always triumph over evil that would be a theme but it doesn't so let's

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see what else we got.. B) a main character gives his life for another sounds like

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another event for us here a related theme might be there's no greater [Girl saving woman from a bus]

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sacrifice than to give one's life for another it's broader not so specific and

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a little depressing honestly let's move on.. D) a battle is won, yep another event

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same problem as the first two we sure hope C) gets it right here and phew! [Person with letter C for a head slices man in armor with D for a head off]

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it does it's important to help those in need now that's a theme it doesn't

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detail an event from the story but you can see how certain events in the story [Girl reading a book]

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might go with this theme maybe our hero strays from his journey to help out some

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poor downtrodden folk and it winds up helping him in his quest or he learns [Man and witch and a fire breathing dragon]

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that helping those people is more important than fulfilling his quest

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so er, option C is our guy we better go see if we can help our Superfriends they

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might be in a pickle....Mmm yummy [Hand putting pickles in superhero sandwich]

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