Whispers of Shaving Blades


The following poem is from “Lather and Nothing Else” and it is written by Hernando Tellez. I made the poem out of pages 3 and 4 and is from the part of the climax. The conflict of the story is between a barber and himself. The barber is both the protagonist and the antagonist because of how he is battling against himself. The conflict is internal because the conflict is about him making a hard decision, where he must choose between killing a man or letting him go. This man is the barber’s enemy because the barber is a rebel, and the man is a captain who kills rebels. The barber must choose if to kill the captain with a razor which he is using to shave the captain. The poem shows the question that the barber asks himself. An example is the opening statement where the poem states, “to kill or not.” I chose these four words as the first words of the poem because this directly states the conflict. Also, I chose to pick out “Torres was enemy” and “But I am not a murderer. These lines show why he wants to kill Torres but also doesn’t. My design adds to the poem because I have added pictures of a barber and razor and also blood, because it is all connected to the barber and the blood is if Torres is killed. I have also changed some word’s color. Some examples are “kill,” “murderer,” and “deserves.” The reason for the color change is to make these words pop out as they are connected to him killing Torres.