Night of the hunter by "Davis Grubbs"

When describing the preacher, John says, "His name is Harry Powell. But the names of his fingers are E and V and O and L and E and T and A and H and that story he tells about one hand being Hate and the other hand being Love is a lie because they are both hate and to watch them moving scares me worse than shadows, worse than the wind."                  This description shows the …

…work. The knife which he always uses with the left hand is an integral part of his madness.         Because he is prone to do evil acts, the preacher creates a wall of goodness to make himself appear more Godly. Powell probably decided to become a preacher as an outgrowth of this elaborate act. Eventually, Preacher became so accustomed to this charade that he began rationalizing his evil by saying he was in fact doing good.