IXL | Match the quotations with their themes

Read the quotations below from Clare B. Dunkle's The Hollow Kingdom. Match each one with the theme or lesson it suggests.

Nature can be a source of courage and comfort.

People are willing to make sacrifices for the people they care about.

Quotation

Theme

"If you love her enough to give up your world for her, don't you think she would want to do the same for you?"

She looked around at the stars, the moon, the trees. These were things she could count on.

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Learn with an example

question

Read the quotations below adapted from Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Match each one with the theme or lesson it suggests.

Knowledge should be shared.

To know something, sometimes you must feel it.

Quotation

Theme

"We think that books instead of being locked up in cupboards, far from the sight of students, should be distributed as widely as possible."

No sooner is the rage of hunger satisfied than it becomes difficult to understand what it means to starve.

key idea

A theme is a key message or lesson communicated in a story, poem, or play. A single work of literature might have a number of themes, and different parts of the story will highlight different themes.

Usually, works of literature don't openly state their themes. But you can often identify themes by looking at important moments in the text, including dialogue, action, and observations made by the narrator.

For example, look at this quotation from an important moment in Tuck Everlasting:

She was afraid to go away alone. It was one thing to talk about being by yourself, doing important things, but quite another when the opportunity arose.
—Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting. © 1975

To find the theme, analyze the quotation. What does it suggest about the character's values? What life lessons could be taken from the quotation? Use questions like these to make an inference, or an educated guess:

The character thought leaving home would be easy when she didn't actually have to do it.

Finally, apply the inference to the wider world to find a theme:

It's easier to imagine doing brave things than it is to actually do them.

solution

Read each quotation and make an inference. Then, apply your inference to the wider world to find the theme.

Quotation 1: "We think that books instead of being locked up in cupboards, far from the sight of students, should be distributed as widely as possible."
Inference 1: The speaker thinks books should be freely available and read widely.
Theme 1: Knowledge should be shared.

Quotation 2: No sooner is the rage of hunger satisfied than it becomes difficult to understand what it means to starve.
Inference 2: The narrator believes that as soon as his hunger is satisfied, he can no longer imagine what it is like to be hungry.
Theme 2: To know something, sometimes you must feel it.

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