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Asif Nazerally
Ms. Carr
ENG 2DE
March 3, 2012
Lather and So Much More
In the short story Lather and Nothing Else by Hernando Tellez, the barber of the story is
faced with an immense moral decision. He was either to kill his most cruel enemy, ending the
feud between the revolutionaries and the government, or to let him walk out from his barber
shop, the same ill-hearted man who will continue to kill countless of innocent people. He made
the wrong decision by letting Captain Torres walk away unscathed because if he were to kill
Torres he would be saving a numerous amount of innocent lives, it would have been the
simplest of murders, and he would be a hero among the revolutionaries.
Firstly, the barber made the wrong choice in letting the enemy live because if he was to
kill Torres when he had the chance, he would be saving so many lives. Torres says that he has
already killed many people, and is also planning to kill more, “’Some of them we brought back
dead; others still alive. But they’ll all be dead soon.’ ‘How many did you take?’...’Fourteen’”
(Tellez 343). Captain Torres tells the barber about how he and his troops have caught many of
the rebels, and they will be killing them later today. Upon hearing this, the barber, being a rebel
himself, was flustered, believing that if Torres knew this, he would also be killed. If he were to
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kill Torres, then the remainders of the fourteen lives that Torres was preparing to kill later that
day would survive, as well as the countless others he would kill in the future.
Another reason that the protagonist should have killed the Captain is because he could
have done it with ease, and he would not be able to fight back. Since Torres is having his facial
hair shaved, he is in a very vulnerable position with his neck exposed, “He leaned back in the
chair... I [the barber] tied it around my customer’s [Captain Torres] neck” (Tellez 343). The
barber describes every aspect of Torres’ entrance and as he seats himself, and emphasizes the
exposure of his neck. Due to the fact that he shaves hair with a blade, the blade must be
remarkably sharp, which would cause almost instantaneous death upon penetrating his
unguarded neck, making it an effortless, silent and quick murder.
The final reason that Torres should have been killed inside that barber shop by the
protagonist is that he would go down in history as a hero among his fellow revolutionaries, as
the man who changed it all. He thinks about what he would be called if he were to kill him.
“‘The avenger of our people. A name to remember’--my name here. ‘He was the town barber.
No one knew he was fighting for our cause’” (Tellez 345). He is envisioning what would happen
in each situation if he had killed Torres or not, as he finishes shaving him. If he were to kill the
captain of their enemies, it would be an enormous step for the rebels, coming close to, or
completing their mission, and the barber would be pronounced a hero, and the man who
brought the enemy to justice.
The protagonist of the story made the wrong decision by letting Captain Torres live
because he will continue to kill many people, it was the best chance the barber would ever have
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at accomplishing his mission, and letting him walk out of the barber shop forfeited his chances
of becoming the avenger of the revolutionaries. Many people would argue that killing Captain
Torres would contradict the barber’s beliefs, but he doesn’t believe in the killing of innocent
people, and Captain Torres is no innocent man.