Alina Mashanlo

Mr. Barazzoul

English 11

September 19th 2017

In the short story “The Two Fishermen,” by Morley Callaghan, the story introduces the readers a affectionate hangman called K. Smith or Smitty for short. Smitty gets called to a small town to execute Thomas Delaney for murdering a man that tried to assault his wife. In the period that Smitty was in town we learned a lot about him and how he has five children, the eldest being 14, and how he fishes to bring home some fish for his wife. Smitty is an ironic character in the book because of his physical appearance compared to his social status as being the hangman he looks rather innocent and sincere with his, “…large head, tapering down to a small chin, a birdlike neck, and a very wistful smile” (Morley 1). Smitty gets introduced to Michael foster which is a small town news reporter and he wants to interview Smitty to get a good story out of him so he can move onto being a city news reporter. One of Smitty’s faults is that he trusts Michael too fast and then it backfires on him because the townspeople create a riot outside the jail because Smitty had to execute Thomas Delaney and he gets hurt in the end by seeing the fish that he offered Michael being thrown at him, Smitty seemed to stare at the fish with his mouth hanging open, then he didn’t even look at the crowd” (Morley 4). At the end of the book the readers realize that Smitty was stereotypes into being a rude, murderous hangman but in the end he was a really modern, sweet man.