The conflict in "Lather and Nothing Else" can be examined a plethora of methods on varying levels of complexity to show several different types of struggle. Each degree of struggle more convoluted than the previous. This wide range of conflicts creates a suspenseful, stressful mood throughout the entirety of the short story. First, there is the struggle of the whereabouts of the barber's loyalties. Next, the deeply psychological, internal monologue that runs on during the actual shave. Finally, in the end, there is a moment of reciprocated perspective, revealing hidden conflict within Captain Torres. With such a broad spectrum of conflict, this short story is filled to the brim with potential for analyzation. Before evaluating the fine grain, complex conflict surrounding "Lather and Nothing Else", one must first regard the obvious conflict. This lies in the barber's loyalties and decisions. He is sympathetic to the rebelling force in his country. A captain, responsible for the execution of several of the barber's allies and other …show more content…
This psychological conflict adds suspense creating an interesting form of conflict. The barber has the perfect chance to end the Captain's torturous life. However, the barber has a moral code and does not wish to become a murderer. He proceeds to argue with his own conscience about the justification of killing the murderous Captain. Whether he kills him or not, he is a murderer. If he does end the Captain's life he has a man's literal blood on his hands. If he lets him live, he has the Captain's victim's figurative blood on his hands. The stressful level of pressure upon the barber remains at a peak during the entire shave. Eventually, the barber decides not to relieve the Captain of his blood. This leaves the barber still frightened yet relieved that he did not directly kill an unarmed
Three stories, “The Most Dangerous Game”, “The Sniper”, and “Just Lather, That’s All”, each with their own plots and conflict, yet they are all quite the same. Examples of conflict are, man vs man, man vs self, and man vs nature. Comparing the stories and writing down detailed descriptive notes shows the similarities between all three interesting stories. To compare the stories may take some time but with careful analyzing and good descriptions, the comparing may not be as hard.
His client is Captain Torres, who is an evil man. The barber has been given the job of shaving his beard, and with the Captain sitting before him and a razor in his hand, the barber realizes how easy it would be to kill him. “I could cut his throat just so, zip! zip! I wouldn’t give him time to complain” (Tellez, 3). This develops the barber’s inner conflict as he is silently contemplating whether to simply shave him like a professional barber should, or kill him on the spot. The Captain’s fate is literally in the barber’s hands. This inner conflict is a result of his image, how he wants to be portrayed, because he is both a barber and a secret rebel. “My destiny depends on the edge of this razor” (3). Therefore, whatever he chooses ultimately results in how his future will unfold. If he kills the Captain, he could be seen as either a “murderer or hero” (3). If he doesn’t kill the Captain, he is letting the man go who is responsible for so many terrible things. After contemplating his choices and considering the consequences, he eventually solves his conflict by simply giving him a shave and letting Torres go. As a result, the barber indeed proves how one’s identity will result in how one’s future will
“Lather And Nothing Else” by Hernando Tellez, shows suspense in many ways, by using key elements. The key element that Tellez uses, develops suspense in the story. Tellez uses many different elements to show suspense like using mood and tone to make us feel something. In "Lather And Nothing Else” Tellez used style, the point of view, and pace to build suspense into the story.
Firstly let us consider conflict. In each act of the play, we see the overpowering desire to belong leading to a climax of conflict amongst the characters, which has the consequence of exclusion. Conflict is a successful literary technique, as it engages the audience and focuses our attention on the issue of conflict and exclusion, brought about by the characters’ desires to be accepted by their community.
7. “Let me make sure you understand. Both you and this King character are on trial for felony murder which is about as serious as it gets...”-PG.12 O’BRIEN One major conflict within the book is obvious (to me anyways) Steve is accused of murder and could possibly have life sentence. This conflict is external (character vs. character) and Steve (protagonist) is fighting against those who are accusing him (Bobo, The State, Petrocelli etc.) they are the antagonists. “...It was me who wasn’t sure, it was me who lay on the cot wondering if I was fooling myself”- PG.148 STEVE. Another major conflict is Steve is struggling to find out who he really is , what did he do, what is real and what is a lie he made to comfort himself? Steve is also struggling to cope with who he has become. This is internal conflict. Steve is fighting with himself to find out who he has become and cope with that.
On the first night of the trip, Sarty’s father asks him to follow him up the hill. His father “struck him with the flat of his hand on the side of the head, hard but without heat” (p. 803). Once he spoke, he said, “You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you” (p. 803). Sarty and his father returned back to camp to rest for the night. Sarty’s father has struck him before, but he had never offered any form of explanation afterward. It was as though the explanation that his father gave him, was the step he needed to realize that he was no longer a timid, meek child. After all, Sarty realizes that although his father has struck him before, he has never told him the reasons as to why, until that night. Perhaps, his father feels that he is old enough to understand the
One of the key components of literature is the usage of elements, these elements of literature provide readers with underlying themes that authors put into their story. Without these elements of literature, the author would have no way to convey their true messages into their works. In Zora Neale Hurston’s story “Sweat”, Hurston uses many elements of literature to convey the seriousness and true relationship of couples that have a history of domestic violence. However, a specific element of literature that Hurston uses are symbols which give readers a clearer understanding of domestic abuse and most importantly, the characteristics of the victim and perpetrator of an abusive relationship. The symbols that Hurston uses in her story are what fortifies her plot and characters in “Sweat”.
Fletcher is not the only one obsessed with looks. Leota is a beautician after all. The setting of the story taking place in a beauty parlor is significant, as is Leota’s job as a beautician. Leota’s character is almost stereotypical in appearance from what is learned, she has black and blond hair, long red nails, and obsessed with a single pastel color, lavender (Welty 1094). Her occupation is to enhance the beauty of women but it is no secret that she lives up to the gossiper stereotype surrounding beauticians. There is not a single person who does not gossip with the person who cuts their hair, especially if they go to a beauty shop. In this shop, the ugliness of gossip and judgment rears its head, ironic is a place where women come to make themselves
The central figures in these three works are all undoubtedly flawed, each one in a very different way. They may have responded to their positions in life, or the circumstances in which they find themselves may have brought out traits that already existed. Whichever applies to each individual, or the peculiar combination of the two that is specific to them, it effects the outcome of their lives. Their reaction to these defects, and the control or lack of it that they apply to these qualities, is also central to the narrative that drives these texts. The exploration of the characters of these men and their particular idiosyncrasies is the thread that runs throughout all of the works.
Emotional discomfort can sometimes be perceived as mental instability. A person may look, act, or feel insane, when in truth they are just very uncomfortable in their own skin. The narrator has a genuinely difficult decision to make which far outside his comfort zone. He is choosing between a woman who has been like a mother to him and much needed job that he feels he may enjoy. This choice is tearing him apart from the inside out. From the ringing noises that interrupt his every thought to the skin he is scraping off. The author uses diction, syntax, and extended metaphors to express the complete and utter discomfort of the narrator, both physically and emotionally.
Regularly in life, it is important to perform at your best, and in other occasions, duties seem too much for some. Both, the narrator of the Yellow wallpaper, and Dave, protagonist of “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”, have to comply with duties that deal with submission to authority, and high expectations from society. Furthermore, In order to deal with their frustrations, the protagonists find symbols that lead to freedom, and use them to acquire their desires. For instance, the narrator of the “Yellow Wallpaper” canalizes her frustrations through the wallpaper that covered the room where she had to be secluded, due to a hysterical condition caused by her duties in the society she lived in. Furthermore, Dave thought that he could find freedom through the power of a gun. Due to their longings for freedom and respect, the
In the short story "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen the conflict between a mother whose giving is limited by hardships is directly related to her daughter's wrinkled adjustment. Ironing, she reflects upon when she was raising her first-born daughter, Emily. The mother contemplates the consequences of her actions. The mother's life had been interrupted by childbirth, desertion, poverty, numerous jobs, childcare, remarriage, frequent relocations, and five children. Her struggling economic situation gave way to little or no opportunity to properly care for and nurture her first-born child. In spite of the attention and love Emily craved and never received, she still survived, and even made strengths, and talents, out of the deprivations she had endured.
E. Arthur Robinson feels that by using this irony the narrator creates a feeling of hysteria, and the turmoil resulting from this hysteria is what places "The Tell-Tale Heart" in the list of the greatest horror stories of all time (94). Julian Symons suggests that the murder of the old man is motiveless, and unconnected with passion or profit (212). But in a deeper sense, the murder does have a purpose: to ensure that the narrator does not have to endure the haunting of the Evil Eye any longer. To a madman, this is as good of a reason as any; in the mind of a madman, reason does not always win out over emotion. Edward H. Davidson insists that emotion had a large part to play in the crime, suggesting that the narrator suffers and commits a crime because of an excess of emotion over intelligence (203).
“The Shampoo” by Elizabeth Bishop was written near the beginning of Bishop’s residence in Brazil and is a direct homage to her lover Lota. Even though Lota is not directly addressed in the poem, an earlier draft of the poem reveals a connection to her longtime lover. Bishop uses the mundane act of washing a loved one’s hair as the basis for a brilliant meditation on the nature and progression of time. In “The Shampoo” Elizabeth Bishop uses imagery of nature, metaphor of time, and deliberate diction to compare the gradual movements in nature over time with the process of aging. Bishop draws a contrast between the process of aging and the timeless relationship she has with
To show how the African Americans straightened their hair. Gates says, “It made a scorching, crinkly sound, the hot iron did, as it burned its way through damp kink, leaving in its wake the straightest if hair strands, each of them standing up long and tall but drooping at the end like the top of a heavy willow tree” (41). This is a simile and also imagery because it is saying someone’s hair strands are long, tall and droopy at the ends comparing it to the top of a heavy willow tree. Also the imagery is describing what the iron is doing to the black person’s hair. Another use of figurative language to establish how the kinky hair was treated and how the barber talked about the quality of an African Americans hair when it was being trimmed, is in the text where Gates has stated, “It is like a doctor reporting the overall results of the first full physical that he has given you. “You are in good shape” or “blood pressures kind of high; better cut down on the salt” (Gates,44). This is a metaphor and means that the barber that is cutting the hair has analysed it and they gave him “not a bad grade” for how his hair is looking at the moment but there is room for improvement when they cut his hair for the first time. Personification is also used to