I had to be most careful the pride of a good barber like me hinges on not letting this happen to any client How many of our people had he ordered killed? I was his enemy; it was a secret I could inform the revolutionaries to hunt them down. Needless to say, I had had him at my mercy alive and shaved. I suppose this is what always happens I’m a good barber, I am not a murderer how easy it would be to kill him. What could be gained from it? Nothing. It goes on and on until a sea of blood. So which is it? Murderer or hero? I don’t want to be a murderer, I will do my duty honorably… I’m only a barber.
In the story that I read “Lather and Nothing Else,” the main character was shaving an executioner’s beard. He was one of the executioner’s enemies, so he would obviously have a thought about killing him. He kept on thinking about if he should kill him, or not, which made the main conflict a character vs self. My poem only shows the climax and afterwards of the story, but it would be better to get more context from the exposition and the rising action. The story started off with the executioner “Captain Torres,” talking about the military’s success in killing people that were against him, which introduced the two sides of a civil war between the military and the citizens. The rising action started when the barber was in his own thoughts, which was the start of the conflict. He mentioned that he was a revolutionary, which were against the military. He was trying not to accidentally cut into Torres’ skin, so he wouldn’t bleed. He was thinking about how it would be better for Torres if he grew out his beard since people wouldn’t recognize him. The climax started when he started thinking about murdering Torres, but he remembered that he wasn’t a murderer himself and was only a part of the people that were against the military. He started thinking that Torres deserved death, but if he killed him, it would be a blood bath and it would just make things much worse. He kept on thinking about the consequences like how he would hide the body, or that he would have to run far away if he didn’t want to be murdered. He would be remembered as something great to the people, but he would be hunted down by the military. He ended up remembering that he was a barber, and he was there to do his job no matter who he was doing it for. Most of the climax mentioned here was used in my poem and shows that the conflict was character vs self since it was mostly in his thoughts. There were two options he could of chose and he kept on thinking about it, this quote shows these options well, “So which is it? Murderer or hero? My destiny hinges on the blade of this razor. I can push down a little more on my hand, lean like silk, like rubber, like sheepskin. There is nothing more tender than a man’s skin and the blood is always there, ready to flow.” 
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