In our lives, we come across numerous books and tales that have the power to inspire us. However, have you ever pondered over what sets these stories apart? Upon reading the short story “Just Lather, That’s All,” I was truly amazed by its brilliance. Three crucial factors contribute to its strength and greatness: conflict, point of view, and dialogue. The inclusion of both internal conflict and person vs. person conflict is one particular element that enhances the effectiveness of the story. This conflict arises at various points in the narrative.
For instance, when Torres entered a barber shop and took a seat, he immediately started discussing his plans to cruelly torture the barber’s friends. Furthermore, Torres even extended an invitation for the barber to witness the twisted spectacle. Thus, the conflict arises from Torres’ actions of killing the barber’s friends, prompting the barber to seek revenge. “Torres was unaware that I was his adversary. He, along with everyone else, remained unaware.” (pg 15) “Consequently, it would prove exceedingly challenging to explain how I had him within my grasp and chose to let him go unharmed and cleanly shaven.” (pg. 15) Throughout the story, the reader will also observe the presence of internal conflict.
The barber is faced with a dilemma – should he kill Torres and seek revenge or spare him? Despite his anger towards Torres and belief that he deserves to die, the barber realizes that no one deserves to be turned into a murderer. He contemplates the consequences of taking a life and recognizes that it would bring him nothing. The decision between becoming a murderer or a hero will determine his future. This internal conflict within the barber, along with the external conflict between himself and Torres, adds depth to the story. Narrated in first person, the narrative provides an intricate account of the barber’s thoughts and actions that may not have been noticed by someone outside the situation. In “Just Lather, That’s All,” the barber describes each movement and emotion he experiences while hesitating over whether to pass his razor back and forth on a stop.
When I first saw him, my body immediately started shaking uncontrollably. However, he remained completely unaware of my condition. To conceal my intense emotions, I continued sharpening the razor that I had in my possession. As a test, I lightly ran it across my thumb and held it up to the light. Many thoughts flooded my mind: “If I adjust my hand slightly and apply more pressure, this blade could effortlessly penetrate. The texture of the skin would yield smoothly like silk or rubber or the strop.” These detailed descriptions of actions are narrated from a first-person perspective, allowing readers to connect with the story’s atmosphere and immerse themselves in decision-making, tasks performance, and concealed emotions.
Dialogue is essential in making a book or short story captivating and intriguing. It breathes life into the narrative, enabling readers to form connections with the characters and acquire a deeper understanding of their personalities. In “Just Lather, That’s All,” dialogue serves as an effective tool through the narration of a familiar barber. Yet, Torres, the second character in the tale, remains mysterious. Consequently, the conversations between these two individuals not only forge a bond but also introduce other characters while gradually unveiling specific information about them.
The story demonstrates a mutual dislike between the barber and Torres, although it remains uncertain how Torres feels about the barber. This ambiguity is evident in Torres’ final statement: “They told me that you’d kill me. I came to find out. But killing isn’t easy. You can take my word for it.” (pg. 17) This conversation implies that Torres was aware of the barber’s animosity towards him and intentionally sought him out to determine whether the barber would choose to spare or kill him.
In addition, the barber’s patience was tested and his anger provoked by Torres during their interaction. As stated on page 13, Torres confidently states, “But we did all right, you know. We got the main ones. We brought back some dead, and we’ve got some others still alive. But pretty soon they’ll all be dead.”
By including dialogue in a narrative, it brings life to the story and sparks curiosity among readers. Ultimately, the success of a story lies in its ability to captivate its audience. This particular tale stands out because it effectively incorporates three essential elements: conflict, point of view, and dialogue.
The use of two conflicts, namely internal and person vs. person, enhances the story “Just Lather, That’s All.” By employing a first-person point of view from the barber’s perspective, the story becomes more intriguing as it pays attention to detail. Moreover, through dialogue, readers gain insights into other characters and breathe life into the narrative. In my view, this story serves as an exceptional example for students by demonstrating how various elements can captivate readers and keep them engaged throughout.
Hot Lights, Cold Steel
Hot Lights, Cold Steel is an exciting medical memoire, written by Dr. Michael J. Collins regarding his life as a resident at the famed Mayo Clinic. This narrative of Collins’ four-year surgical residency recounts his progress from an enthusiastic but inexperienced first-year resident to an expert Chief Resident. In detailing the rigorous path to a successful medical career, Collins conveys his struggles with academic challenges, familial responsibilities, professional pressures, and personal conflicts. The book opens with orientation for the first year residents.
Entering one of the most recognized residency programs in the country, Collins felt completely underprepared and incompetent in comparison to his classmates—“Although I had been an excellent student in medical school, I had very little exposure to orthopedics… I had done no research, had written no papers, and had only one rotation in ortho. ” Afraid of being drilled by Dr. Harding, the attending surgeon for the beginning of his stint at Rochester Methodist Hospital, Collins works relentlessly to match the level of expertise of colleagues.
Through his hard work and unrelenting academic efforts, Collins begins to portray the hardships that await first year residents. He thwarts the notion that medical students learn everything there is to know about medicine in their time in medical school; instead, he emphasizes that the career itself is a lifelong commitment to the pursuit of knowledge. During his time with Dr. Harding, he learns of a poem called Little Albert which ends with the boy getting eaten by a lion and a subsequent philosophical conclusion: “what can’t be helped must be endured. Although Collins does not specify a meaning that should be extracted from this quote, the reader can assume its relevance to the medical field; there are plenty of ailments about which doctors can do absolutely nothing but watch the patient suffer. After Dr. Harding’s service, Collins spends two weeks under Dr. Coventry. During this time, he learns of the case of Thomas Rodnovich, a patient whose operation went awry because a junior resident prepared the wrong hip. Dr. Coventry warned Collins that he owes it to his patients to always be scared of failure, but says that one can learn much more from failures than successes.
There is clear importance of these ideals for any medical professional. Towards the end of his time with Coventry, Collins is finally allowed to wield a scalpel and make his first incision—a defining moment in his career. Next, Collins does a rotation in the ER with Dr. Joe Stradlack. In the ER, Collins encounters his first death in the form of a young boy who had an accidental gunshot wound. It was the first time Collins had seen someone die, and he realized the unarguable truth that death was a very ordinary and common occurrence, and that life goes on.
Michael Collins’s next set of lessons is embodied by the trouble he had in maintaining a stable family life. The emergency room rotation had damaged the relationships he had with his wife and children—“I had been a terrible husband, a terrible father. I was rarely home, and when I was, I had no patience for anything, no energy for anything, no interest in anything. ” His brother Denny, needing shoulder surgery, visited the family for a few days and proved to be the reality check Collins needed: “What the hell kind of life am I leading?
I wondered. I hardly ever see my wife. My kids don’t even know me. My brother is more of a father to them, and more of a husband to Patti than I am. Is that what I want? ” Through this interaction, Collins highlights the importance of attending to the aspects of life that are not related to one’s career, such as family. Collins admits on several occasions throughout the book that a healthy relationship with his wife Patti helped him immensely through the rigors of surgical residency.
While long hours require residents to invest a substantial amount of time in the hospital, one must prioritize in order to do justice to all the other important things in life. The other issue worth discussing is the concept of moonlighting, when residents work overtime hours at rural hospitals to earn some extra cash. Collins clarifies that the purpose of this extra cash is not to support a lavish lifestyle; instead, the money can merely help him put food on the table and the pay the mortgages.
Although some hospitals and institutions discourage the idea of moonlighting, the necessity for money justifies the cause: while the residency program was only paying them $2. 50 per hour, moonlighting could earn the residents upwards of $20 per hour. Some of the issues that arise because of residents who moonlight have to do with the quality of care that patients receive. Residents already invest long hours at their assigned hospitals, and then they go to a different hospital for moonlighting hours.
Sacrificing sleep causes them to be less focused, more distracted, and sleepy on the job. While it may be justifiable for residents to moonlight for more money, the patients are ultimately at loss because they do not receive the care they would at the doctors’ full potential. While the lessons Collins learns in his first year lay the foundation for the next three of this residency, he encounters some very interesting cases in the following years. When a man named Jason comes in with his fingers cut off, Collins convinces Dr. Wilk to conduct a very intense operation to reattach them.
Even after receiving warning that smoking cigarettes would cause the replants to fail, Jason goes for a smoke and the operation inevitably fails. Collins was greatly disappointed in Jason for going against his advice but Dr. Wilk reminds him that his emotions were selfish and that the doctor’s job is to do nothing but help the patient. Another notable case is that of Sarah Berenson, a young girl who comes in with an osteogenic sarcoma—a cancer with a five-year survival rate below five percent. After a hemipelvectomy (removal of an entire hip—including the leg), the beautiful girl’s physique had been severely disfigured.
However, to Collins’s astonishment, Sarah came out of the surgery content and grateful for the things she had not lost. The final story is that of Kenny Johannson, the one with which Collins begins the book. Kenny was a fourteen year old boy whose leg had been demolished by a tractor and Collins had to make the decision regarding whether the leg should be amputated or salvaged. Collins was torn because amputating Kenny’s leg would mean changing his life forever, but trying to save his leg might take Kenny’s life.
In the end, Collins made the decision which he thought was the best one for Kenny: he amputated Kenny’s leg. While the aforementioned stories all presented themselves at different times to different people in different situations, there is a central message that connects all of them: Collins reminds his readers that patients need a compassionate doctor who will set aside his own internal conflicts to treat his patients in the most favorable way and strive to provide emotional support along with the required medical attention.
Wave-Particle Duality
The study of the nature of light is an important research area in modern physics. Many, including the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, have contributed to theories involving light. Of these, the wave-particle duality is arguably the most strange and noteworthy concept in the field. Throughout history, some physicists have argued that light behaves as a wave, such as Christiaan Huygens and others, such as Isaac Newton have proposed that light consists of particles (Wave-Particle Duality, March 2010).
Today, as stated in the wave-particle duality, light is said to exhibit wave-like and particle-like properties. And still today, physicists are troubled by understanding this concept. The concept of wave-particle duality is one of the most confusing concepts in physics because it isn’t like anything we see in the everyday world. In the 18th and 19th century, there was a huge debate among physicists studying light about whether light was made of particles shooting around like bullets, or waves washing around like waves (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010).
There are times when light seems to act as both. At times, light appears to only travel in a straight line, as if it were made of particles. Yet other experiments show that light has a frequency or wavelength, just like a sound wave or water wave (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010). “Until the 20th century, most physicists thought that light was either one or the other, and that the scientists on the other side of the argument were simply wrong. ” (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010) “If light travels as particles we can imagine particles of light (photons) as bullets fired from a rifle.
Imagine a brick wall with two holes in it, each the same size and large enough to fire bullets through, with a second wall behind where the bullets will strike (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). ” After shooting enough bullets, you would see a cluster of bullets behind the two holes (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). Since this result is indeed what you get with bullets, a similar outcome is expected with photons. If we instead imagine light as a wave instead of particles, we can imitate its behavior with a water tank.
When the wave spreads out from its source, it would get to both holes at the same time and each hole would then act as a new source (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). The waves would then spread out again from each of the holes, in phase. “As the waves moved forward, spreading as they go, they would eventually interfere with one another. Where both waves are lifting the water surface upward, we get a more pronounced crest (constructive interference); where one wave is trying to create a crest and the other is trying to create a trough the two cancel out and the water level is undisturbed (destructive interference) . (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008) If this system were repeated with light instead of water and if light travels as waves, the second wall would display an interference pattern of alternate light and dark bands across the wall (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). Particles, however, would create two distinct areas of light, like where the bullets would hit (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). In 1909, a scientist named Jeffrey Taylor attempted to settle the argument once and for all. He used an experiment previously invented by a man named Thomas Young.
In this experiment, light was shone through two holes right next to each other. When light was shone through these two small holes, it created an interference pattern that seemed to show that light was actually a wave (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010). However, Taylor furthered this experiment by photographing the film coming out of the holes with a film that is uncommonly sensitive to light. “When bright light was shined through the holes, the film showed an interference pattern, just like Young showed earlier (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010). Taylor then turned down the light to a very dim level and when the light was dim enough, Taylor’s photographs showed a dotted pattern of light behind the holes. According to this, it seemed that light behaved as a particle. “If Taylor allowed the dim light to shine through the holes for long enough, the dots eventually filled up the film to make an interference pattern again. This demonstrated that light was somehow both a wave and a particle. ” (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010) To make matters even more confusing, Victor de Broglie suggested that matter might act the same way (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010).
Scientists then performed these same experiments with electrons, and found that electrons too are somehow both particles and waves. Today, experiments such as this have been made in so many different ways by countless people that scientists just accept that both matter and light carry the wave-particle duality and are somehow both a wave and a particle. For the most part, scientists admit that they don’t fully understand how this could be, but from this experimental data, they are certain it must be true. Although it seems impossible to understand how anything can be both a wave and a particle, scientists do have a number of equations for describing these things that have variables for both wavelength (a wave property) and momentum (a particle property). ” (Wave-Particle Duality, January 2010) This experiment has in fact been carried out a multitude times, with the same results every time, and the results are nothing less than amazing. When the experiment is set up with both slits open, the resulting interference pattern clearly shows that light behaves as a wave. If this were the only thing to it, we could all go home happy campers.
This is where the word strange can be fit in. If the experiment is set up to fire individual photons, so that only one photon at a time goes through the setup, the same interference pattern would not be expected. It would be expected that a single photon would go through one of the holes and not both at the same time to create an interference pattern (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). But what happens is not what’s expected. After waiting until enough individual photons have passed through to create a pattern (which takes millions of photons), the results do not show two clusters opposite the two holes (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008).
They show the same interference pattern! It seems as if each individual photon somehow ‘knows’ that both holes are open and yields that result (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). Each photon will place itself on the wall in a position that when enough photons have passed through, they collectively create an interference pattern when there is no known interference (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008)! If this experiment is repeated, except this time with only one hole open, individual photons act normally and all cluster round a point on the detector screen behind the open hole, as expected (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008).
Conversely, when the second hole is opened, the photons pass through the holes to form an interference pattern (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). From these outcomes, it is concluded that not only does a photon passing through one of the holes ‘know’ of the other hole, but also perceptive of it being open. To understand why this is, scientists have tried watching the photons to see which hole the photon goes through and if it goes through both holes at once or if half a photon goes through each ole (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). Detectors are placed at the holes to record the passage of the electrons through each of the holes. However, when this experiment is staged, the photons now behave like normal particles (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008). The results show that the photon travels through one hole and not the other, never both, and the pattern that is created matches the pattern for bullets, with no sign of interference (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008).
Additionally, the same result occurs in there is a detector by just one of the holes. This means that when a photon passes through a hole, it can tell if the other hole is open or not and if the other hole is being watched. The double slit experiment establishes many things. First, it appears as if each photon starts out as a single particle, arrives at the detector as such, but seems to go through both holes at once, interfered with itself and placed itself in the correct location to form the overall interference pattern.
This conduct brings bout many questions. . “Does the photon go through both holes at the same time? How does a photon go through both holes at the same time? How does it know where to place itself on the detector to form part of the overall pattern? Why don’t all the photons follow the same path and end up in the same place? ” (The Double Slit Experiment, 2008) According to Albert Einstein, “the most comprehensible thing about the universe is that it’s comprehensible. This can be understood; maybe we just need to look at it in a different light!
References
The Double Slit Experiment. (2008). Retrieved February 25, 2010 from website: http://www. quantum-theories. com/theories/double-slit-experiment. php Wave-Particle Duality. (2010, January 27). Retrieved February 25, 2010, from website: http:// simple. wikipedia. org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality Wave-Particle Duality. (2010, March 19). Retrieved February 25, 2010, from website: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Wave–particle_duality