Conflict

Conflict is the struggle between the opposing forces on which the action in a work of literature depends.

In short stories, there is usually one major conflict. In longer stories, there could be several conflicts.

Some forms of conflict include the following:

Person vs. Person

Person vs. Self

Person vs. the Environment

Person vs. Technology

A person vs. person conflict is between two forms of like beings.

Examples

From Where the Red Fern Grows -
Billy and his dogs are attacked by a mountain lion, and they must do everything they can to survive.

From Weasel -
Nathan is captured by Weasel, an Indian fighter. Earlier in the book, Weasel had attacked Nathan's pa, had taken away Pa’s riffle, and had killed the farm animals.

In a person vs. self conflict the main character has a problem within him/herself.

Examples

From Weasel
Nathan spends the winter months struggling with his conscious. Should he go back to Weasel’s cabin to seek revenge or forget about Weasel?

In a person vs. the environment conflict a character is struggling against the forces of nature.

Example:

From Where the Red Fern Grows -
Little Ann and Old Dan tree a coon in the tallest tree in the river bottoms.

From Where the Red Fern Grows -
Billy enters the championship coon hunt and encounters the snowstorm

In a person vs. technology conflict, a character has a problem with robots or machines.

Example

From Hatchet -
Brian flying the airplane after the pilot dies.

Practice

The house could have easily been the scene for a horror movie. On the outside, its fading paint job, broken windows, and creaking porch swing provided a hint to what we would find on the inside. The front door swung open to the inside, forcing us to enter the building before we could glimpse the contents. Several families had lived in the house through the years, most recently the Duttons. Every inch of the front room was covered in dust, and cobwebs hung in every corner. We immediately started hearing sounds, soft moans like those of a sick person. The scariest thing we saw was a portrait of an evil looking man above the mantle. His eyes appeared to follow us as we moved farther into the room. 1. Which sentence that describes the setting of a story is most likely to lead to the main conflict?
A. The front door swung open to the inside, forcing us to enter the building before we could glimpse the contents. B. Several families had lived in the house through the years, most recently the Duttons. C. Every inch of the front room was covered in dust, and cobwebs hung in every corner. D. We immediately started hearing sounds, soft moans like those of a sick person.

The Missing Chip

“Here, Chip. Come here, boy.” Jackson stood in the open doorway, calling to his dog. The boy stood still and listened. He hoped he would hear the sound of Chip’s rustling the bushes as he came bounding to the door. As the boy stood there, he heard the birds chirping in the treetops. He heard the tractor in the field across from his house. He heard many sounds of nature, but he did not hear Chip. Jackson closed the door and spoke to his mother.

“I don’t know where Chip could be,” he said. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.”

“Why don’t you ride your bike around the neighborhood to see if you can find him?” suggested Mom.

Jackson put on his shoes and his jacket and headed for the door. “Be careful on the road,” said Mom. “If a car comes, pull your bicycle over to the far side of the ditch.”

Jackson rode across the creek bridge, calling out to his dog. “Chip, come here, boy. Here, Chip!” The daffodils fluttered as he rode past them. Jackson looked across the field. He scanned the cow pasture as he rode along the fencerow. There was no sign of the dog. Jackson stopped his bicycle in front of Mr. Yoder’s barn. He stood still and listened. He thought he could hear a faint whimpering sound coming from the barn. He pedaled quickly toward the barn. “Chip! Here, Chip!” he called as he raced. He climbed off his bike quickly and let it fall to the ground. The whimpering sound was coming from inside the barn.

Jackson climbed over the barn gate and went inside. His eyes panned the stalls and the hay, but he saw no sign of Chip. Just then he heard movement from the left side of the barn, and the whimpering began again. “Chip, I’m here, boy,” Jackson said as he rushed to a broken board behind a small wagon. Chip had somehow climbed between the broken boards and was stuck in the wall.

“How did you get in there, boy?” Jackson asked. The hole was much smaller than the basset hound. “You must have chased something behind the boards, and that’s how you got stuck. I’ll get you out of here,” Jackson said. The boy sat on his knees and tugged on each board until he found one that was loose. He wriggled the board and pried the nail loose until the board finally came off, enlarging the opening. He reached his arm inside and pulled the dog back through the hole.

Chip shook the dust from his coat. Jackson scratched his hound behind the ears. “Come on, boy,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

2. What is the main conflict of the story?

A. Jackson cannot find his basset hound, Chip.

B. Chip rides his bike through the neighborhood.

C. Jackson has to find a way to free his dog.

D. Chip could not find the hole in the barn.

The Cardboard Surprise

“Mom, have you seen Jasper?” Marie asked as she walked into the kitchen. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Did you check the garage?” Mom replied. Marie turned in her tracks and headed outside to check the garage. She grabbed her coat and mittens, which were hanging by the door. She flipped on the porch light and shut the door behind her.

“Here, Kitty, Kitty,” she called as she walked along the driveway to the garage behind the house, the noise of the city traffic nearly drowning the sound of her voice. Marie opened the garage door and shut it behind her. The noise remained outside. “Jasper Kitty,” she sang. “Where are you, Jasper?” She flipped on the light so that she could see in the shadows.

“There you are,” she cried, spying the calico in a cardboard box underneath some old shelves in the corner. “Come here, girl,” Marie pleaded, but she could not get the cat to move.

“Well, if you won’t come to me, I will go to you,” Marie reasoned. She moved the junk that was in her way. She pushed a tricycle to the left. She lifted two old boxes and balanced them on the tricycle seat and handlebars. She stepped her feet gingerly between piles of rope and stray yard tools. Finally she reached the box where Jasper rested. Marie tipped the edge of the box out into the light so that she could see inside it.

“Oh, my!” she said. “No wonder you didn’t come when I called! You have baby kittens!” Marie rubbed Jasper’s belly as the newborn kittens wriggled their heads into their mother’s fur. “One, two, three, four…” Marie counted. “You have four baby kittens!”

3. What is the main conflict of the story?

A. The family keeps too much junk in the garage.

B. The girl, Marie, found the cat and her kittens.

C. Marie cannot find her cat, Jasper.

D. The cat, Jasper, had four kittens.

4. How is the conflict resolved?
A. Marie cannot find her cat, Jasper. B. Jasper has had four new kittens. C. The girl cleans out the garage, throwing the junk in the garbage. D. Marie found the cat with its new kittens in a box in the garage.

The Jump Drive

“Jontez, it’s 7:15. The school bus will be here in five minutes,” Mom hollered up the stairs.

“I’m almost ready,” Jontez replied from his room on the second floor. Less than a minute later, Jontez bounded down the stairs. “Have you seen my math binder?” Jontez asked.

“No, I haven’t seen it,” said Mom.

“The binder has my jump drive in it. My math project is due today, and it is saved on my jump drive,” Jontez explained.

Mom thought for a moment. “What were you doing with the binder the last time you had it?” she asked.

“I was using it as a hard surface to write my spelling words on,” answered Jontez.

“Where were you, Tez, while you were writing the spelling words?”

“Sitting on my bed,” he said.

“And what did you do when you were finished?”

“I walked downstairs and got a soda from the kitchen,” replied Jontez.

“Did you bring your binder with you?” questioned Mom.

Jontez thought for a minute. He retraced his steps in his mind. “Yes, I did,” he said finally, his face lighting up. Jontez walked over the counter beside the refrigerator. There was a stack of papers lying there. “I put it down right here,” he said, lifting the top half of the papers. “And here it is!” he exclaimed.

Just then Jontez heard the bus’ brakes squeal as the bus stopped outside his house. “Thanks, Mom,” he said, and he quickly kissed her cheek before heading out the door.

5. How is the conflict resolved?

A. Jontez’s mother punishes him for losing the binder.

B. Jontez finds the binder on the counter in the kitchen.

C. The binder is found under the bed where Jontez had been working.

D. The boy cannot find the binder that has his math project in it.

6. Read this excerpt from Gary Paulsen's book How Angel Peterson Got His Name.

There was--this is important--no television. There were just two channels in the major cities on the East and West Coasts. Almost nobody in town had a set. A TV set at that time was a huge buzzing, hissing black-and-white monster that had the added benefit of being dangerous. The coating on the inside of the picture tube required no less than forty-two thousand volts to operate, an amount that could easily kill fifteen or twenty horses. When television finally did come to the small towns up in Minnesota many a cat was turned into something close to a six-hundred-watt lightbulb by sticking his nose back in the power supply area of a console television set, trying to investigate the little crackling sounds and blue glow that came out of the ventilation holes. On his twelfth birthday, my pal Wayne Halverson licked the end of his finger and stuck it near the ventilation panel on his family's new RCA set. (Even though there was no television station programming to watch for nearly two more years they used it for a conversation piece and a place to put their bowling trophies, but my grandmother said the Halversons had always put on airs ever since Dewey, who was Wayne's great-great-grandfather, was kicked in the head by a workhorse and found that he could do accounting.)

Wayne never actually touched the top of the main rectifier tube and so didn't get the full jolt, which would have cooked him on the spot, but it arced over to his finger and a lesser charge, say enough to light two or three single-family dwellings for a week or so, slammed him back into the wall and left him unconscious for several minutes. He later claimed that the incident was what made him the only one in our group who could actually talk to girls.