A theme is the central message that a work wants to convey. The theme of a book is something subjunctive that the reader will only perceive with the progress of reading and with the interpretation of everything that has been read. In "Their Eyes Were Watching God" after reading and interpreting the story as a whole, we can see that the theme is about the difficulties of a black woman in owning her own destiny within a racist and patriarchal society, since all the story tells of the difficulties that Janie Crawford faced due to her race and her boldness in leading herself.
The topic is one aspect of the theme, that is, in a book, the topic refers to a type of sub-theme, it is a subject that fits the message that the work wants to convey, but it refers to a smaller and more objective. In "Their Eyes Were Watching God" one of the topics covered is sexual violence, as Janie reports how her mother and grandmother were r4ped and what the consequences are.