Sample 1
Ima Sample
Ms. Croteau
English 8A, period 5
13 January 2011
Jumping to Conclusions Leads to Unfavorable Consequences
Have you ever assumed something? Assuming things and jumping to conclusions are problems
that we all face. If we’re lucky, these hasty assumptions don’t really affect our lives. Sometimes,
though, jumping to conclusions or assuming things can lead us to making life-changing mistakes. In two
stories, “Man in Hiding” and “The Necklace,” jumping to conclusions and assuming things plays an
important role in the outcome of the story. By jumping to conclusions, the main character from each
story ends up living a very different life.
Edward Bernard once said, “Man is too quick at forming conclusions.” This is especially true in
the story “Man in Hiding.” Written by Vincent Starrett, “Man in Hiding” portrays the story of a man in
disguise. Throughout the story, the man continuously thinks that people recognize him. “Loxley’s first
instinct [is] to turn and flee.” Although he is disguised, Loxley, the man in hiding, sees someone whom
he recognizes, and quickly assumes that the man would also recognize him. Luckily, Loxley quickly
decides to act normally, and by doing so, he saves himself. Later in the story, he gets a message and
immediately assumes that it is bad. “What could Gloria have to say? Bad news of some kind…” Here
again, he knows he had to wait for the information, and he does. Finally, the police walk into his shop,
and the first thing that he thinks is, “This is the showdown.” He remains calm, and lets them know that
he needs to do something down the hall, where he locks himself up in a chest. The reader is then left to
assume that he perishes in the chest. During the story, the reader is tipped off that the police only want
to sell tickets, so if Loxley waited like he had the first two times, he wouldn’t have ended up trapped in
the chest.
Sample 2
In the story titled “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, the life of the main character,
Madame Loisel, is changed because she jumps to conclusions. Madame Loisel wants to borrow a
necklace from her rich friend and naturally assumes that it is worth a lot. “Will you lend me this, only
this?” As Mason Cooley said, “Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.” Relating to
assumptions and jumping to conclusions, this quote can mean that greed alone can fool people, which in
Madame Loisel’s case would be true. Later in the story, Madame Loisel loses the necklace. As her
husband is out looking for it, Madame Loisel “[waits] all day, in the same condition of mad fear.” Not
once does it occur to her that the necklace may not be worth very much at all. Eventually, the Loisels
decide to buy a new necklace to replace the old one. “They [find] … a string of diamonds … they could
have it for 36,000 Francs.” The Loisels plunge into poverty, taking ten years to work and pay off all of
the money that they borrowed. If only they hadn’t jumped to conclusions about how much the necklace
was worth, their lives would not have been so drastically changed.
From both of these stories and quotes, we see the danger of jumping to conclusions and making
assumptions. By making assumptions, the characters’ lives changed considerably and in ways that we
wouldn’t usually think of. I have come to the understanding that it can seem natural to jump to
conclusions, so we may not really realize that it is happening. I also think that not really noticing our
assumptions may be why the characters in the stories jump to conclusions.