“Stains” by Sharon MacFarlane and “Just Lather, That’s All” by Hernando Téllez are both short stories that explore the protagonists internal conflicts. They both include internal conflicts that are similar yet different from one another. The similarity that is shown in both stories is that the protagonists are having an internal war. The differences of the internal conflicts in both the stories are that the mother is helpless to save her son while the barber is able to help a large group of people. Throughout the short stories, there are some similarities between the internal conflicts. The mother and the barber are both having an inner war. The mother is remembering her past relationship with her son and how she did not praise him enough. …show more content…
In “Stains”, the mother is helpless and unable to help the son get better, unlike in the past when he was incredibly sick. “’Go home,’ they told her, ‘there’s nothing you can do here. We’ll call you.’” Since the son is dangerously wounded, the mother cannot help him because she does not have the skills to treat the injured, which makes her feel helpless and useless at this time. The barber is able to help the rebels by killing Captain Torres. He has the power to save the lives of many people and change society on the way they look at the rebels. He can easily slit the captain’s neck and save his people which will make him known as their saviour. “I could cut this throat just so, zip! zip! ... ‘The avenger of us all. A name to remember… he was the town barber, no one knew he was defending our cause.’” In conclusion, these two short stories go hand in hand with their similarities and differences in the internal conflict. The protagonists in the stories both suffer an inner war while trying to remain calm in the situation they are in. However, the protagonists are in different situations. While the barber has the power to save a large group of rebels from Captain Torres, the mother is unable to help her son in any