Stephen King's Bag of Bones is a brilliant work of fiction. It brings so many genres of literature together including horror, romance, and suspense even with all this he still manages to keep the plot on track and the story meaningful it tells the tale of Mike Nanoon a widower who to escape his grief goes to his summer home on dark score lake. While there he meets Mattie Devore whose husband died recently leaving her to raise hr young daughter Kia alone. To keep them safe Mike faces both a crazed millionaire grandfather bent on having Kia for him-self and the ghosts of the lake who have a score to settle. The theme of Bag of Bones is that reason and love can overcome the dark side of man, King developes this theme thru the use of title, character, and organization. .
The title of this novel is very important to the theme because it refers to the literal bag of bones that contains the remains of Sara Tidwell the women who was brutally raped and murdered along with her son just because they were black in a white town. This single incident shows human nature at its worst, the truly dark side of man which is a key part of the theme of the novel. The bag of bones phrase also symbolizes all of the sins of the past and reminds me of the old saying "the sins of the father are visited upon the son" I think this is also a very important sub-theme of the story because it covers how Saras ghost returns for vengeance on the people who wronged her by killing there children just like they killed her son .
Mike, Mattie, Max, and Kia these characters are essential to the story and thusly the theme. Without Mike there would not have had a strong rational point of view that could see past the darkness of his past and protect Mattie and Kia from the irrational prejudices that consume the TR. Mattie is a strange but necessary character she provides not only the love interest but also a conflict for Mike because he doesn't know how to handle his attraction to her and vice versa.