Various
techniques may be used to express literary themes.
Leitwortstil Leitwortstil, which means "leading word style" in German, is the repetition of a wording, often with a theme, in a narrative to make sure it catches the reader's attention. An example of a leitwortstil is the recurring phrase, "So it goes", in
Kurt Vonnegut's novel
Slaughterhouse-Five. Its seeming message is that the world is
deterministic: that things only could have happened in one way, and that the future already is predetermined. But given the anti-war tone of the story, the message perhaps is on the contrary, that
things could have been different. Its use in Scheherazade's
Arabian Nights demonstrates how the technique can result to the unification of the constituent members of story cycles. There is also the repeated use of the root
kbd in
Samuel I, to indicate "weightiness, honor, glory". In New Testament studies, a leitwortstil is called a verbal thread. David Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie identify several verbal threads in their seminal narrative-critical study of the Gospel of Mark. For example, Mark ties together two disparate narratives with a verbal thread that forces the reader to search for connections between the narratives. The word for ripping or tearing (Greek: σχίζω,
schizō) is found at the baptism of Jesus in Mark 1:10 and at the rending of the temple veil in Mark 15:38.
Thematic patterning Thematic patterning means the insertion of a recurring motif in a narrative. For example, various scenes in
John Steinbeck's
Of Mice and Men are about loneliness. Thematic patterning is evident in
One Thousand and One Nights, an example being the story of "The City of Brass". According to David Pinault, the overarching theme of that tale, in which a group of travelers roam the desert in search of ancient brass artifacts, is that "riches and pomp tempt one away from God". The narrative is interrupted several times by stories within the story. These include a tale recorded in an inscription found in the palace of Kush ibh Shaddad; a story told by a prisoner about Solomon; and an episode involving Queen Tadmur's corpse. According to Pinault, "each of these minor narratives introduces a character who confesses that he once proudly enjoyed worldly prosperity: subsequently, we learn, the given character has been brought low by God ... These minor tales ultimately reinforce the theme of the major narrative". ==See also==