The three on the left are first person and the three on the right are second-
One theme of this story is coming of age, which is revealed through Kevin’s experiences at school and home. In the story, Kevin feels caught between his interactions with his father at home and his teacher at school. Waldo, Kevin’s teacher, humiliates Kevin because his father helped him complete his homework, which is incorrect. Consider the character interaction at the end of the story between Kevin and his father:
“How did it go today?” his father asked.
“All right.” They kept silent until they reached the corner of their own street.
“What about the Latin?”
Kevin faltered, feeling a babyish desire to cry.
“How was it?”
“OK. Fine.”
“Good. I was a bit worried about it. It was done in a bit of a rush. Son, your Da’s a genius.” He smacked him with the paper again. Kevin laughed and slipped his hand into the warmth of his father’s overcoat pocket, deep to the elbow.
Kevin has the “babyish desire to cry,” but he doesn’t let his father know about the problems at school. His restraint shows that through this experience Kevin has matured, and he is protecting his father from feeling the humiliation from his school experience.
A theme is a universal lesson learned and the central idea is a one-sentence main idea.
- <em>Central idea</em> conveys that the text is about mainly, whereas, <em>theme </em>refers to the author's message, life lesson or moral learned from the story.
- A <em>central idea</em> cannot be referred to as the topic of the text, on the other hand, a <em>theme</em> cannot be same as topic.
- In one sentence, the<em> central idea </em>can be stated, whereas, <em>themes</em> are repeated and can be multiple.
Therefore, a theme is not the central idea, nor it can act as a topic of the text.
