A Happy Man's Shirt

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The theme in A Happy Man’s Shirt is don't count your chickens before they hatch. In the story we are given several examples from characters abroad who do exactly thus. In A Happy Man’s Shirt, we are greeted with a dilemma with the king sending out people from all over the world to find a truly happy man and obtain his shirt. In one excerpt several ambassadors approach a king who has everything they could ever want, in hopes of obtaining their shirt. They believed he was truly happy, “Yes, indeed, I have everything anybody could possibly want. But at the same time I worry because I’ll have to die one day and leave it all. I can’t sleep at night for worry about that!” (1) and thus their hope was shattered. By giving us a false sense of security in knowing that the journey was nearly over and the goal completed, the author redoubled on himself by implying …show more content…

To prove this even further, there is another excerpt that once again does this. This time the king is the one who gives into falsified hope along with the others, taking to a young man whom he has found to be truly happy “No, no, I tell you. I’m content with just what I have and want nothing more.” (1) believing him to be the one, the King went on with his plan “The King grabbed him and started unbuttoning the youth’s jacket. All of a sudden he stopped, and his arms fell to his sides….The happy man wore no shirt.” (2) once more every hope one would have for this ending swiftly or in a jovial way is shattered, once more we are presented by the author with overt proof that raising one's hopes beyond what is reasonable is dangerous and will lead to disappointment. As in with both the King and the ambassadors, they opted to blindly believe that their goal was accomplished before they even made an attempt at a double take so as to analyze what was presented. Instead the groped blindly at their chances, and fell short each

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