Theme

I dont think theme is nessasarry for a story to be good. I have read alot of short storys that are made for more symbolic reasons instead of straight forward meanings. In some genres of writing i think that a theme is nessasarry such as adventure novels and horror storys because sometimes those kinds of storys can be a little more confusing than others. Some storys that concentrate too much on the plot lack in other smaller things and cause them to even still be less interesting to the reader. I think that in the end it comes down to what kind of read you are looking for.