Question

What's the difference between theme and central idea? Question 1 options: Theme is the main idea of a story, and central idea is the lesson learned. Theme is a one-word repeated idea and central idea is a complete sentence explaining the main idea of the story. Theme is a universal lesson learned and central idea is a one sentence main idea. There's no difference in theme and central idea.

Answer 1

A theme is a universal lesson learned and the central idea is a one-sentence main idea.

• Central idea conveys that the text is about mainly, whereas, theme refers to the author's message, life lesson or moral learned from the story.
• A central idea cannot be referred to as the topic of the text, on the other hand, a theme cannot be same as topic.
• In one sentence, the central idea can be stated, whereas, themes are repeated and can be multiple.

Therefore, a theme is not the central idea, nor it can act as a topic of the text.