Writer's Fallout Shelter

All stories don't have morals, but they all have themes, even if they're unintentional. I agree that the two can be related.

For instance, the theme of Mark Twain's Pudd'n'head Wilson is one of nature vs. nurture and the message the reader (or at least the message I got from it) is that race is not the deciding factor of who a person is. (Keep in mind, Pudd'n'head Wilson was written not long after slavery had ended and the United States was struggling with the role of the freed slaves in society.

That's a much deeper message for readers to think about and take away with them than just the simple moral that "Slavery is wrong."

The underlying theme of my work seems to be a search for an individual's place in the greater scheme of things, how a single person or a group of people fit into the world around them.