"The Piece of String" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant, in which the author utilizes a number of different rhetorical devices to help convey his point. In the first paragraph, we see asyndeton, a form of parallelism where conjunctions are omitted:

by their hard work, by the weight on the plow which, at the same time, raised the left shoulder and swerved the figure, by the reaping of the wheat which made the knees spread to make a firm "purchase," by all the slow and painful labors of the country.

The use of asyndeton here serves to amplify the intensity of the labor, making the workers' trials seem unending. Like the labor, the sentence seems to draw on and on.

We also see the use of simile to lend vividness to the mental picture the author paints, with the women's blouses "like balloons ready to carry them off." Enumeratio—the listing of numerous details—is also used for this purpose: "that smacked of the stable, the dairy and the dirt heap, hay and sweat."

Another form of parallelism, anaphora, is used to good effect in the story. Anaphora is where the same initial word or words begin a series of sentences or clauses, as "He understood . . . He tried . . . He felt it." The successive strong verbs and similarly structured short sentences help to amplify the starkness of the man's feelings, reflected by the curtness of these statements.