Why does Torres go to the barber's in "Just Lather, That's All" despite knowing the danger?
Torres was never ignorant of his situation. He lets you know that at the end of the story when he says,
"They told me you'd kill me. I came to find out. But killing isn't easy. You can take my word for it." (last line of story)
He purposely went to that barber shop. Torres was the Captain of the town, and he had to deal with rebels among the people. However, to talk about killing someone and actually killing them are two different things.
Torres actually taunts the barber to see how far he can push him. Torres has captured fourteen of the rebels, and he knows that the barber is sympathetic toward them. It can be inferred that his spies have been watching people in the town to see who is sympathetic, otherwise they would not have warned him to stay away from the barber shop. So he tells the...
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barber,
"Not one of them comes out of this alive, not one"
He also tells the barber that he is tired and
"....I could go straight to sleep"
Torres does show that he is nervous because he would not stop talking. The barber actually comments on that. However, Torres is either a very brave or very stupid man for doing what he did. The barber wouldn't have lived long, but it would have been so easy for him to slice the Captain's throat. Torres was also aware that it takes a certain kind of man to kill and be cruel.
Why does Torres in "Just Lather, That's All" choose to have a shave despite knowing the danger?
It is important to not just note that Captain Torres is not only placing himself in a position of danger by having a shave from a barber he knows to be a rebel sympathiser, but that he also deliberately goads the barber by refering to the rebels he has captured and how they will be punished. When the barber asks him if the captured rebels will receive the same fate as the previous rebels, Torres responds:
I don't know yet. But we'll amuse ourselves.
Torres seems to be deliberately testing the barber, almost encouraging him to go ahead and kill him. Yet when his motives are considered, the fact that Torres willingly places himself in this situation seems to point towards various truths in his character that present him as quite a reckless and insanely brave individual who deliberately courts danger. What is fascinating about this story is the way that the reader's impression of Captain Torres completely changes with the last sentence, as it moves from viewing him as a bloodthirsty, cruel and malicious individual to seeing him as a brave (perhaps recklessly so) character who recognises what it is to take a human life. He seems to be a character who holds his own life at very little value, and is willing to risk it at any stage in order to prove something to himself and others. Torres therefore places himself in danger because he wishes to teach a lesson to the barber, that killing is much more difficult than it first appears.