This found poem is created within the internal thinkings of the barber from “Lather and Nothing Else” by Hernando Téllez. The story starts with the barber, who is the protagonist, faces internal conflict throughout the story. The internal conflict in the story is portrayed by showing us the inner thoughts of the protagonist. The internal conlict in the story is about the barber who fights with the two sides of himself, either killing Torres, the captain, or just keep shaving his (Torres’) beard. The internal conflict starts when the barber thinks about how Torres multilated rebels in the schoolyard. This start in paragraph 14, when in the passage it says, “I had never had him so close. The day he ordered the townspeople to gather in the schoolyard to see the four rebels hanging there, I caught a glimpse of him. But the sight of the mutilated bodies kept my eyes from lingering on the face of the man who was responsible for it all, the man whose face I was now going to take in my hands. It wasn’t an unpleasant face, for sure.” After that, when he started shaving Torres’ beard, he starts fighting with himself if he should just cut Torres’ neck or not. He goes back an forth with himself between the two ideas. All of the internal conflict starts in paragraph 31 and continues until paragraph 33. For example, in the passage, it mentions “The man who murdered Captain Torres. He slit his throat while giving him a shave.  A coward.” Or, “The man who avenged our people. A name to remember (fill in my name). He was the town barber.” “So which is it? Murderer or hero?” Just the two of these lines can portray how much internal conflict he is having about killing Torres. And in the found peom, I extracted the lines “So which is it? Murderer or hero?” because it is the center of the internal conflict the barber is having with himself. I also extracted the words “deserves. Does he?” because the word “deserves” followed by a rhetorical question can show that he is questioning his on thoughts, which can show he is having an inner turmoil where he is very uncertain about all his choices and thoughts.

I chose a demon and an angel pulling from different sides on a person because in this internal conflict of the passage. The barber just keeps thinking of if he should murder or not. And murdering is something evil to do but thinking that he should not murder is a good thought, but he is jumping back and forth on the two ideas. So the background really portrays on how he cant decide and is stuck in the middle or is being pulled back and forth between demon and angel.