Lather and Nothing Else vs. the Bicycles

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Synthesis Essay Moral dilemmas are occurring everywhere around us, even if we don’t notice them. At least once in your life, you will be faced with a moral dilemma of your own. Everybody is different when it comes to dealing with tough decisions, and we show it in different ways. Hannah from “The Bicycle,” and the barber from “Lather and Nothing Else,” both face moral dilemmas in each of their stories. Both authors use characterization to reveal the difficulty involved in making difficult choices. Hannah, from the short story “The Bicycle,” has a very painful choice to make dealing with her Tante Rose and her piano career. The author uses different devices such as characterization, conflict, flashback, etc. that show how painful and difficult it is for Hannah to make her final decision. At the beginning of the story, Hannah was so in love with the idea of becoming a professional pianist. Hannah shows her love for music by playing day and night, because she knew that’s what Tante Rose wanted. Jillian Horton’s use of characterization to reveal how difficult making decisions, was shown in Hannah’s thoughts and actions. What Hannah was thinking of doing, was a lot different than what she was actually doing. The author showed us how hard her decision was to make and made it clear what the pros and cons were. She was thinking of going against Tante Rose and riding the bicycle, but her actions showed that she never wanted to do that until the end of the story when she does. Just like Hannah from “The Bicycle,” the barber from “Lather and Nothing Else,” had to go through making a painful decision as well. In the story “Lather and Nothing Else,” the barber undergoes a moral dilemma that could change his life forever. The whole time he is shaving Torres, the barber is debating whether it is the right decision to kill Torres or not. The author shows us how hard it is to

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