Theme vs. Morals of a Story

The Difference between the Theme and the Moral of a Story The difference between the theme and the moral of a story is that the theme is the general topic or idea of the literature and the moral is the lesson you take away from reading the story. The moral can be similar or the same as a theme, but a theme can’t be a moral. As the theme or general idea of a story or article may be obvious, the moral may be harder to figure out and require extra thinking and inferring. A moral may also be more of an opinion and controversial for what each person took away from the story after reading it. Blab la bla closing sentence A good example of a moral and a theme can be found in the fable Tortious and the Hare. The theme of the story is “slow and steady wins the race” and the moral can be “to never give up” (OR OTHER THINGS). This is the theme because it is the general topic/statement of the fable, and this is the moral because it is what you can learn from the story. This is not the only lesson you can learn from this fable, you can say that the moral is to “not underestimate someone” (the tortoise) or to “not be too full of yourself” (the hare). This supports my statement on morals being more of opinions of the individuals who read the story. I believe people can usually agree on the same themes but think of different morals. Research I did on the difference between the theme and the moral pretty much supported my thoughts for the most. I looked up the definitions for both: Theme (n) (in literature, music, art, etc.) a unifying idea, image, or motif, repeated or developed throughout a work. (Dictionary.com) Moral (n) the moral teaching or practical lesson contained in a fable, tale, experience, etc. (Dictionary.com)
This shows that There are many differences between themes and morals to specify the two. A lot of the times themes can be vaguer than the moral. Sometimes morals can be about the theme, as the theme being the overall topic of the literature, but not the other way around. Themes are also subjects that are simpler and more universal then the morals, including themes like love, compassion, honesty, etc. So as you can see, when you really think about it, there are differences between the themes and morals of a story. Themes and morals are two different important elements of literature.