Summary

“The Vigilante” by John Steinbeck tells the story of Mike, who is in a park, part of a mob who has just lynched (killed and hanged) an African-American man accused of a crime. He looks at the crowd as if in a dream and notices that they are trying to burn the dead man with a lit newspaper. He comments on it to someone close to him saying it is no good burning the man, but that person ignores him. Then he tells the same thing to someone else. Mike claims that there is no point in burning a man who is already dead, but his interlocutor believes it is a good thing.

Mike leaves the mob and walks on the streets feeling strange: tired, lonely, and dazed. He enters a bar hoping to find people to talk to, but inside there is only the bartender, Welch. The bartender, who only caught the end of the lynching, begins to ask Mike questions about what happened. Mike tells him that people gathered in the afternoon next to the jail and that when the sheriff came to give a speech, the mob broke into the jail....