Hernando Téllez’s short story “Lather and Nothing Else” presents a internal conflict within the protagonist, the barber. The barber is a revolutionary but his client, a captain in the opposing military force, is at his mercy, causing the barber struggles with the decision to kill him or let him go free. With this project, I used two applications to design and create my poem – canva, and Microsoft word.

In the poem, I introduced the key characters – “He” as the captain and “I” as the barber. The opening lines sets up the stage for the building tension, as how I described is “He killed, he mutilated” to explain the captain’s violent acts.

I also putted many contradicting phrases, such as when he has the opportunity to act as an “executioner” and to take the revenge, but still his identity is still a “barber”, in the poem it says “Painless he wouldn’t suffer” and “You’re an executioner and I’m only a barber,” this clearly captures the barber’s internal conflict.

The central image of the hand holding barber tools with blood stains behind it is a powerful visual metaphor, and leads to the question of will the barber use these tools to kill, or will he use it to finish his job.