Literature can be looked at and interpreted in many different ways. Everyone has their own opinion of how certain literary elements affect a piece of literature. I happen to have my own opinion about Summer of My German Soldier and The Drowning of Stephan Jones. Different literary elements often have a huge effect on how the piece fits together. I feel that the author, setting, and characters have a rather large impact on the theme of the two books. In a lot of aspects, these two books were very similar. Both of them being written by the same person has a lot to do with how the theme is affected.
Bette Greene, the author of the two books, is a southern woman. She was born in a small town in Arkansas. Greene was born and raised with the ideas of the south and the bible belt. I think that the fact that she was from the south really affected the way the books were written and what theme was to be abstracted from them. Greene probably understood how people felt and what was to come of them if they were an outcast in a small town. I feel that she wrote these books because she wanted other people to realize how things are in small towns. She achieved that in the theme. The theme that I got was to not judge people just because they are "different" from you. If Bette would have been from the north or a big city such as New York, I do not think that she would have expressed the same theme in her writings. Along with the upbringing and ideals of the author, I also believe that setting affects the theme.
The setting of both of Greene's books are very similar. Both of them are set in small towns where outsiders are not often accepted if they are "different" from the people who live there. The theme of the books is strongly affected by the settings, because in the tow towns, what the characters are taught is all that they know. People are not accepted into the closed community simply because they have different ways of thinking and don't act the same.
