The of a story can be applied to other works of literature or to life

The theme of a story can be applied to other works of literature or to life .

Explanation:

The theme describes the central message of the work: it describes the basic idea of the work. A book may contain several different themes, as different readers may interpret the same text in different ways. Indeed, post-structuralist literary scholars in particular have objected to the concept of the theme too restrictive, since there is no definitive interpretation of the work. However, even if the text is difficult to comprehend or interpret, the reader will usually instinctively look for a coherent, unifying theme in the book.