Every day people are judged on his or her first appearances, and usually there are wrongly judged. The theme of the story " The Yellow Sweater" suggests that same idea: one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. The one doing the judging in this story is "Tom": he wrongly judges the girl, himself and the yellow sweater. Let's examine the final outcomes of these superficial judgments.
             Most often one has a tendency to wrongly judge others. In this case, the man judges the girl, Mary, as trying to trick him so she can get a ride. The author writes:
             He knew her type all right. (...) while all the time she was secretly laughing at him for being the sucker who picked her up, bought her a lunch, and drove her into town. She couldn't fool him; he'd met her type before. (page 109)
             He thinks that she is playing an innocent role to fool him but that she isn't as innocent as she let on. All the while, the one who is trying to trick someone is definitely not Mary but the man "Tom". He knows, the whole time, that his inner thoughts are wrong. While the girl trusts him more and more, and opening up to him, he continues to hide his true identity. He does so by not stating his real name, by vaguely speaking about his work and by hiding the initials on his wallet. Yes, the girl may hold back a little bit at first and doesn't completely tell the truth about what her uncle did to her, but at least she doesn't
             try to hide who she is. If one asked him self, the one trying to play games is the man, who wrongly judges Mary and doesn't even look at himself first.
             Not only does one judge others by first appearances, but one also perceives him or her self in a certain way. In this case, Tom judges himself as being a powerful man. While traveling on the road, he pats his wallet proudly as of showing he has a lot of money. He thinks highly of himself when putting the hitchhikers do...