Lather And Nothing Else Analysis

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Recommended: Moral dilemmas

The story, Lather and Nothing Else, takes place in the late 1800s during a revolution. A man named Captain Torres, who was a known for killing hundreds of people mercilessly, walked into a barber shop. The barber working there immediately recognizes him. Torres was an enemy of his in the revolution. Torres was responsible for the death of many people and will harm many more. Torres asked the barber for a shave and the barber was now faced with a moral dilemma. Whether he would slit his throat and kill him or just do his job by giving him a shave and treating him like any ordinary customer. The barber thought about different ways he could respond to the dilemma he faced. One was eliminating the problem (killing Captain Torres), or, avoiding the …show more content…

The barber didn’t know how people would respond to eliminating Torres either. He tried to figure out how he would be thought of if he killed the Captain. He says to himself, “The murderer of Captain Torres. He slit his throat by shaving him, what a cowardly thing to do! And others would say The avengers of our people. A name to remember!”. In order to face this moral dilemma, the barber uses the thoughts of other people's reactions to help him decide which is the moral thing to do. If the barber eliminates Captain Torres, he would be killing a murderer, but then he would become a murder himself! He would be just as bad as Torres if he killed an unarmed man. The other way he could respond which is by avoiding the problem in all and letting Torres leave unharmed, could be both negative and positive which makes the decision an even harder one. If he leaves Torres alone, then Torres would go out and kill many more people. But, the barber would not become a murderer himself and he would not have to flee into hiding. The barber thinks the best option is by avoiding the problem because he can not get passed the fact that he would be a

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