The protagonist in this piece is a man kept separate by his own mind and by his family from modern society. He is made to feel unmanly for his blood phobia and of course seeks to draw blood to prove his manhood. He lives with the delusion he heads the house he lives in and cannot stand a brother in law intruding. He cannot protect his sister or his mother due to his neurosis so he reenacts the past in his mind finding a girl who eggs an abuse lover on and ten avenges her beating by shooting the boyfriend. He observes a sneak thief of a little girl being severely if deservedly spanked in public and again does not interfere but stalks and shoots the father. His grandmother slaps him for each of his offense in an old school formal retribution which explains his rigid form of thought. Only the invocation of the Code duello gets him to give up his antique gun rather than shoot his brother in law. This script could be the basis psychology paper on the old world as seen as a refuge from the new. A man unable to relate to the world long enough to aid himself or the women he loves avenges the injuries of others by projecting his mother and sister upon the woman he sees. He punishes as his mother does but with the delusion he is fighting duels. Interestingly he punishes the punisher of the spanked little girl thus perhaps shooting the part of his out of step grandmother he hates and loves. This study in something between autism and schizophrenia was very important in 1961 when so few would seek help for fear of being labeled mad. A final note the ambiguity of Arlene Golonkas abused woman with the "But I love him" attitude is too sadly real. The public spanking the little brat received was the type of thing that makes one jump on a shopping mall. Both these bits of reality speak to good direction and integrity regarding realism. The other small girl informed by the detective that spanking little brother won't get her put in jail for a hundred years no matter what her mother says speaks to the kind of parentally inspired fear that creates the kind of neurotic this episode is about, if that fear goes unchecked
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