The Theme Of Just Lather That's All

Just conflict, that’s all. “No one deserves to have someone else make the sacrifice of becoming a murderer. What do you gain by it? Nothing.”. (Télles, H. (1950). Just Lather, That's All). This sentence in and of itself shows immense amounts of conflict that add to the main theme. Now there are many different varieties of conflict present in literature; character vs. self, character vs. character, and character vs. society are just a few - the short story “Just Lather, That’s All” by Hernando Téllez is about a revolutionary barber who contemplates killing the murderer of rebels, Captain Torres while shaving him. In the story, character vs. self is the most prominent conflict with how the barbers' thoughts are formatted to align with the five

The barber is in denial. He's trying to deny any thoughts about causing harm to this murderer of rebels out of reach.
Then comes anger. The sentence directly after the denial goes as follows,” And how easy it would be to kill him. And he deserves it. Does he? No! What the devil!”. He’s angry at even the slightest thought of killing Captain Torres, but the thoughts are taking a toll on the barbers’ willpower and self-control. From there we find bargaining, “No one deserves to have someone else make the sacrifice of becoming a murderer. What do you gain by it? Nothing.”, and it doesn't stop there, “I could cut his throat just so, zip! Zip!...” “… He wouldn't suffer. But what would I do with the body? Where would I hide it? I would have to flee.”. This bargaining goes on and on as he balances the pros and cons of killing Captain

“But I don't want to be a murderer, no sir. You came to me for a shave. And I perform my work honorably. . . . I don't want blood on my hands. Just lather, that's all.”.
Themes are an important part of any story; acting as the reason why the writer wrote the story in the first place. The conflict in “Just Lather, That’s All” is what perpetuates the theme to come across clearly to the reader. In this story, the main theme revolves around human morals- whether it would be right or wrong to kill. This would be harder to communicate if the theme was character vs. nature; at least for the setting of this story, per se.
The five stages of grief are a very prominent aspect of this text. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance all make a big play in the barbers' minds. Whether big or small, there's no denying that “Just Lather, that's all.” has human morals as its main theme. And after all, “No one deserves to have someone else make the sacrifice or becoming a murderer. What do you gain by it?