"They say great themes make great novels. but what these young writers don't understand is that there is no greater theme than men and women"
About this Quote
O'Hara's line has the snap of a craft note disguised as a dismissal. "They say" sets up a vague chorus of workshop wisdom - the kind that flatters young writers into thinking they can reverse-engineer greatness by picking a suitably Important Topic. His pivot is blunt, almost impatient: stop chasing themes like trophies. The only subject that reliably bears the weight of a novel is the social animal, in heat and in trouble.
The subtext is both generous and cutting. Generous because it offers permission to write about desire, marriage, jealousy, ambition, class anxiety - the messy middle of ordinary lives - without apologizing for being "small". Cutting because it implies the opposite of sophistication: that the hunger for "great themes" can be a form of evasion, a way to avoid the hard work of rendering people accurately, with their contradictions intact.
Context matters: O'Hara made his reputation on unsparing portraits of status and sexuality in American life, especially in small towns where reputation is currency and romance doubles as social strategy. In that world, "men and women" isn't a quaint binary so much as a pressure system: gender roles, flirtation, power, shame, and the quiet transactions that decide who gets to belong. The line also reveals a professional skepticism about literary fashion. Big ideas come and go; the friction between bodies, egos, and expectations doesn't. O'Hara isn't arguing against theme. He's arguing that the theme worth trusting is human behavior, and that it's "great" precisely because it never stops being specific.
The subtext is both generous and cutting. Generous because it offers permission to write about desire, marriage, jealousy, ambition, class anxiety - the messy middle of ordinary lives - without apologizing for being "small". Cutting because it implies the opposite of sophistication: that the hunger for "great themes" can be a form of evasion, a way to avoid the hard work of rendering people accurately, with their contradictions intact.
Context matters: O'Hara made his reputation on unsparing portraits of status and sexuality in American life, especially in small towns where reputation is currency and romance doubles as social strategy. In that world, "men and women" isn't a quaint binary so much as a pressure system: gender roles, flirtation, power, shame, and the quiet transactions that decide who gets to belong. The line also reveals a professional skepticism about literary fashion. Big ideas come and go; the friction between bodies, egos, and expectations doesn't. O'Hara isn't arguing against theme. He's arguing that the theme worth trusting is human behavior, and that it's "great" precisely because it never stops being specific.
Quote Details
| Topic | Relationship |
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