There are many significant ways authors can present their themes in their stories. Upon these themes are power, destiny, and free will. An author may express these ideas point-blank, but oftentimes, an author can use dramatic flavor, literary style, character development, and plot movement to put them across. These can have a momentous connotation to the flow of the story.
In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens conveys others" power over Oliver by using dramatic flavor and literary style to make the reader feel its emotion. It is not plainly stated, but as the reader reads on, one can sense that Oliver is but helpless, while the others have, to a certain extent, such a control over him.
"But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep.".
In that passage, the reader can clearly sense that Oliver is delicate through the choice of words Charles Dickens presents - a very somber one - and through the dramatic flavor that intertwines with it. .
Literary style is immensely used in the works of William Shakespeare. He uses it to his advantage to explain his themes. It can be interpreted easily as some are said plainly as it can get, but his literary style can often - mostly - be symbolic. Consider the following from A Midsummer Night's Dream:.
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: .
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold .
Her silver visage in the watery glass, .
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,.
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,.
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
Shakespeare's literary style can be seen here as Lysander explains to Helen his plans to escape with Hermia. This can be interpreted through the last two lines of the stanza.