A Piece of String

As you walk through the town people laugh at you. You try to tell them the truth, but they just shake their head and keep on walking. Pretty soon loneliness starts to creep up and there is nowhere to run from it. In the short story “A Piece of String” written by Guy de Maupassant, symbolism is in the most unexpected of places.

First, the string in this short story symbolizes bad luck. Nothing good ever comes from this tiny piece of string. For example on pages 8 and 9 Maitre Hauchecome was accused of stealing money from a pocket book that he found on the street and not returning it to its owner. Another problem the string brought to Maitre Hauchecome was death. On page 13 of the story he lay in his bed waiting for death to take him to a better place where he might be understood.

Although the string brings bad luck everywhere and anywhere, being accused of something you didn’t do is just as rough. On page 8 Maitre Hauchecome was accused of picking up a pocketbook on the street, though he just picked up a small piece of string. Not only that but he is laughed at everywhere he goes and thought of as a liar. This same situation relates to real life because people aren’t always believed, and some are even laughed at. The beginning of the story might not have given enough of his background information, and maybe he’s lied in the past. In the end he felt as if the life and happiness in him was slowly slipping away.

While it may seem as though being accused of something you didn’t do was taking the worst of the brunt, having everyone in town not believe you tops the charts. Feeling alone and having no one believe you is truly very hard. The towns people in this short story only heard from a man what he saw, they weren’t actually there to see him pick anything up. Therefore they wouldn’t actually know what the truth was, so really they're just picking sides with the mayor because he’s more powerful, and more believable. In real life if you want to believe something so badly you actually start to make yourself, and I think that’s what the town’s people did.

Overall this story truly brought out the meaning, don’t believe everything you hear. Maybe if the towns people didn’t pick sides, and actually got the proof and believed him, he might have died as a happy old man, instead of a frustrated one. The symbolism throughout this story really states that you need to see it to believe it.