Compare And Contrast Lather And Nothing Else

Human beings have to make decisions that define who they are. The short story “Lather and Nothing Else” by Hernando Telléz is a story based on the Colombian revolution of the 1950’s in which this noble barber has to make decisions that will define his faith. The barber’s enemy, Captain Torres, comes to the barber’s shop to get a shave and with his enemy so close and a blade in his hand he had to decide whether he was going to kill Captain Torres. Would he become a murderer or would he keep being the professional humble barber he was? You might ask, what could’ve come between them to become such bad enemies? Well this story was based on the 1950’s and at this time Colombia was having a civil war. the Barber was a revolutionary but not many people knew that and Captain Torres was a soldier. This means Captain Torres was killing the Barber’s people, and that’s what comes between them. In the movie version by Jeff Hamuel, you can see most of the elements of the story in a graphic way. The movie is better because, although it doesn’t have internal dialogue, it showed a bit more information on the barber's background.

For instance when Captain Torres walks into the barber’s shop the narrator explains how the barber feels this huge responsibility on his hand. The movie, on the other hand, uses objects and symbols to give information on the barber’s background. For example, when the barber is debating between killing Captain Torres or not he walks over to a shelf where a picture of a woman and a baby rests and touches his ring finger. This is an example of how the author of the movie shows the symbol of the ring finger to represent the barber’s marriage; the audience can assume that the barber is married and has a family which is a very big piece of information that the written version