Theme
A theme is what the story is REALLY about.
Playwright David Mamet said once that you write your first draft about something you choose. Then during the process, you figure out it's about something altogether different. Your next draft will then be about that altogether different topic -but it too becomes about something different. This process continues on until you truly understand what you are trying to say and what your story is REALLY about for you, the character and the audience.
Watch this scene from David Mamet's Glengarry Glenross, about real estate salesman:
the theme?... Can you deduce it your self...?
the desire of power, the lust for manipulation between men?
this is just a one person's interpretation perhaps...
you should be able to guess something that is close to the author's/filmmaker's intent, without it explicitly told to you.
not dissimilar to the "moral" of the story, but themes are, of course, not always simple or moralistic. There may be no specific lesson to be learned, and themes can be deliberately complex, incomplete, or philosophically open to interpretation.
*Krawczyk and Novak
