Theme, symbolism, metaphors, and more

Illustration by Jun Cen

I thought this was going to be a straightforward post, but the more I read about theme and the more I work at detecting it in the novels I read, the more I see that it's an elusive truth that is multilayered and can mean many things to many people, and even to the author it's a truth that can be appear as a singular vision, or can change and fluctuate and focus and dissolve and continue forming as the book is written. As such it is a feeling, an understanding of the...