Tension in Witch's Money In John Collier's "Witch's Money", the stranger who suddenly appears in a remote mountain village in Spain is initially seen by Foiral as an unwelcome madman. Certainly his surrealist description of the landscape must seem like a symptom of madness to those unfamiliar with the trends of modern art. However, once offered a nice sum of money to buy Foiral's house, the stranger is treated with a new attitude. He is not yet fully accepted by the community he has moved into, but he wields a new kind of power simply because only he can produce cash from banknotes. With his magic checks, however, the stranger creates a tension that results in an economic struggle between him and his community. Even worse, the stranger unwittingly creates conflict among the city's natives who were a close-knit group. Ultimately, due to the power that the "witch's" money brings to this community, the people of the town - once happy and contented - are destroyed, and so is the community as a whole. Despite his unconventional art, this stranger is a miserable missionary for the decadent values ​​of Western civilization, and with his money he brings the disease of capitalism to the innocent village. One of the first signs of struggle between the stranger and the community arises when the villagers express their suspicions about him. They seem to think that the stranger is making up details to perhaps hide a secret. Arago, for example, underlines that the foreigner claims to have "[come] from Paris" but also "to be American" (67). The fact that the stranger has no relatives increases the city's suspicions. More importantly, though, Foiral and the town are skeptical about...middle of the paper...and for him'" (75). Thus, at the end of the story, the townspeople laugh at Guis as they march to the bank to ask for their money, Guis, they believe, has nothing while they have a considerable treasure in checks. They do not know that disaster awaits them when they ask for payment for their blank checks. The town will no longer be happy and contented attempt to cash the checks will lead to the discovery of the artist's murder and the ruin of the village bank. In reality the village has already been ruined, its innocence destroyed by the capitalist power of the witches' money. Witch's Money". York: Dell, 1958. 61-75.