Reading for Theme

• Love, Sacrifice, Suffering, Joy, Courage...How do you define what each of these terms means to you? Each of these abstract terms really has no meaning, no definition, without a context: a story complete with plot, setting, action, character is necessary in order to define what these things mean.
  
  For example, what is the meaning of the word "sacrifice"? Take the stories of Jesus, Abraham, Mohammad, Hamlet, Romeo, Juliet, Odysseus, or George from Of Mice and Men, for example. Do these characters in their individual stories begin to provide a meaning, a definition, an example, a conception, of the word "sacrifice"? AND MORE IMPORTANTLY...
  
  How do we, as readers, react to the meaning, definition, provided by literature? Does it conflict with what we held as the meaning, definition, of "sacrifice"? Does it enrich, expand, enlighten the meaning or definition at all? Do we assimilate this new understanding into our conception of the world around us, or other people? Does it enhance or enrich us, the human race, reality?
  
  Such is the definition of theme: a story's primary insight about life and life's meaning.