Reflections And Short Story Analysis: Jess Hilter's Thief

Reflections Being a thief is not as easy as many would think. “Thief”, a short story by Jess Walters, involves a man named Wayne who discovers someone within his family is stealing from their vacation savings jar. This only drives him crazy as money keeps disappearing time after time. In his head, Wayne begins to investigate and accuse his children of how and why they would be stealing from the jar. All the while he never he thinks to question his wife, Karen. I believe the thief was never really the problem though. Wayne had this same family tradition when he was younger, and one time he stole from the jar. Because he feels the need to know who is doing it, Wayne hides in the closet in hopes to learn of the thief. Then when he has the chance

He stole two dimes from the vacation fund when he was younger. He then went to the store and bought some stick candy and baseball cards which he described as the, “Worst fucking candy he ever ate” (50). It is obvious that Wayne was overcome with guilt that it tasted awful. Then when he did go on that vacation he panics about not having enough money. At this point Wayne is not even thinking about the present but what had happened in the past. The guilt of never confessing is driving him up the wall. Who the thief is does not matter, all that does is that Wayne never told his family the

People do things that should not be done. They also know that it can fixed by simply confessing, but the thought of letting people down stops us. Wayne’s guilt was literally eating at him, and he mentioned that, “He did it once, and it almost killed him” (50). That one time caused him to never do it again. The only problem was that he never admitted his wrongdoing. At the very end of the book, the point of view switches for the readers to know the thief walk away with quarters was described as, “ two hot circles of mourning in my palm” (52). The thief knows it is wrong to do just like Wayne did years ago and keeps walking. Everyone feels the guilt, but it is what can be done afterwards to alleviate