Characters

The story “The Vigilante” by John Steinbeck includes several characters: the collective character of the mob, the unnamed lynched man, Mike, Welch, and Mike’s wife. The mob is important for the social setting and it is defined by anger, irrationality, indifference to violence, and moral bias (they think it is fair to lynch an African-American). The wife is an episodic character who comes across as nagging and angry because she suspects her husband is cheating on her.

Mike

Mike is the main character in the short story, whose perspective and inner conflicts the narrator follows.

His outer characterization only tells us that he is married without children and that he lived in his home town all his life: “ ‘I was born right in this town, right in the house I live in now. I got a wife but no kids.’ ” (p. 4, ll. 13-15)

Inner characterization

His inner characterization focuses on his perspective on the lynching that he took part in. 

From the beginning, we find out that he is conflicted about lynching the African-American man, and that he disapproves of burning his dead body. In Mike’s opinion, the purpose of all the violence was to punish the man and enforce justice. If the man is already dead, there is no point in burning him: “ ‘That don't do no good,’ he repeated. ‘He's dead now. They can't hurt him none.’ ” (p. 1, ll. 25-26); “His brain told him this was a terrible and important affair, but his eyes and his feelings didn't agree. It was just ordinary.” (p. 1, ll. 37-38)

Mike is an accomplice to violence and the brutal killing of the African-American because of his racist bias. Like everyone else, he prefers to dehumanize the victim, to view him as an evil spirit and not as a human being. The victim is simply “a nigger fiend” (p. 3, l. 4).

Mike might use his actions during the lynching as a reason to feel proud and special, so that he can get others’ attention. This is why he brags about taking a piece of cloth from the victim’s clothes and why he emphasizes his role in the lynching: “ ‘I was one of the first in the jail, and I helped pull on the rope. There's times when citizens got to take the law in their own hands.’ ” (p. 2, ll. 34-35)

However, he also probably feels guilty and does not want to be alone because he would think about the lynching: “He hoped there would be people there, and talk, to remove this silence; and he hoped the men wouldn't have been to the lynching.” (p. 2, ll. 8-10)

His conversation with Welch shows that Mike is convinced or is trying to convince himself or Welch that the mob was right in killing the man and that there will be no repercussions for the killing. This emphasizes the idea that Mike wants attention, and that he distrusts the authorities and their power: “ ‘You God-dam' right,’ he said. ‘Lawyers can get them out of anything. I guess the nigger was guil...