Conflict: Study Guide (English Literature 3.5)

Conflict is competing values under pressure

A conflict is tension between competing values. The values may compete:

• within a character, which is internal (or psychological) conflict: a person wants two things that cannot both be had, or believes two things that pull against each other; or
• between a character and outside forces that obstruct them, which is external conflict: another person, a family, a society, a rule, nature.

A character’s decision, such as to act or not, to speak or stay silent, to stay or to go, is the place where conflict shows. The plot moves because a conflict is developed, complicated, intensified or settled.

Naming the values

To analyse conflict, do not say only “there is a conflict between Macbeth and his wife”. Say what values are in tension, and who or what holds each.

Conflict	Values in tension	Kind
A character wants to leave and feels bound to stay	Freedom or ambition against duty or love	Internal
A character wants to speak truth to a community that prefers comfort	Truth against belonging	External
Two characters define “courage” differently	One value of courage against another	External, between perspectives

Several conflicts at once

A longer work seldom has just one conflict. It may have a primary conflict and additional conflicts that intersect with it. For example, a character’s internal doubt (a conflict of values within them) may be intensified by an external pressure (a deadline, a person who pushes). When conflicts intersect:

• the pressure from one heightens the other,
• a decision in one changes what is at stake in the other, and
• the reader sees the character squeezed from two sides.

Inconsistency as evidence of conflict

When a text contains inconsistencies, such as a character who says one thing and does another, a calm surface over an agitated action, or two accounts of the same event, they may create contrasts that represent conflicts of values or perspectives. If a character says “Don’t mind me” while refusing dinner for a week, the contradiction between words and action shows what is in conflict: the wish not to burden and the need to be cared for.

Worked example 1: internal and external conflict in a public-domain play

In Act 1, Scene 7 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth has been considering the murder of King Duncan. After his soliloquy (see Topic 3.1), where he names reasons against the deed and “Vaulting ambition” as his only spur, his wife enters and he says:

We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour’d me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.

Lady Macbeth replies:

Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress’d yourself? … Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”
Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?

Macbeth answers:

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

Step 1: Identify the internal conflict. In his soliloquy Macbeth sets duty (a “kinsman”, “subject” and “host” should protect the king) against “vaulting ambition”. In this exchange he leans towards duty and reputation: “He hath honour’d me of late”, and he has “Golden opinions” that he does not want to “cast aside so soon”. The values in tension are loyalty and good name against ambition.

Step 2: Identify the external conflict. Lady Macbeth challenges his decision. She argues from a different value: consistency between desire and action. Her phrases “Art thou afeard / To be the same in thine own act and valour / As thou art in desire?” and “Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’” measure him by whether he acts on what he wants.

Step 3: Notice the clash of definitions. Macbeth says “I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none.” For him, being a man involves restraint within limits. She replies, “When you durst do it, then you were a man”, so for her, being a man means daring. The two characters use the same word for opposite values.

Step 4: Say how the conflicts intersect. Her external pressure heightens his internal conflict: she attacks the very self-image (“a coward in thine own esteem”) that makes him hesitate. The external conflict gives the internal one a deadline and a target.

Step 5: Say what the conflict does. It moves Macbeth from “We will proceed no further” to the question “If we should fail?”, which shows that he is already considering the plan and not the principle. The scene turns on how the intersection of the two conflicts overcomes his restraint.

Model paragraph opening: “Macbeth’s internal conflict between loyalty (‘He hath honour’d me of late’) and ambition is heightened by Lady Macbeth’s external challenge, which redefines courage as the match between ‘desire’ and ‘act’. Their opposing uses of ‘man’ show a conflict of values, and her pressure turns his refusal into the practical question ‘If we should fail?’”

Worked example 2: inconsistency and intersecting conflicts (original passage, written by Marlbridge)

Dr. Amara Osei had been offered the chair at the university, and she had until Friday to accept. Her mother, in the next room, had been refusing her dinner for a week and calling it a diet. “Go,” her mother said, in the voice she used for both orders and apologies. “Don’t mind me.” Amara carried the untouched plate back to the kitchen, where the letter of acceptance, signed and unsent, lay on the table. She set the plate down on top of it.

Step 1: Identify the conflicts.

• Internal: Amara wants the chair (ambition, achievement) and feels a duty to her mother (care). She has signed the letter but not sent it.
• External: the deadline (“until Friday”) and her mother’s refusal of food, which is a form of pressure, whatever its cause.

Step 2: Identify the inconsistencies.

• Her mother says “Go” and “Don’t mind me”, but she refuses dinner “for a week” and calls it “a diet”. The words release Amara; the behaviour keeps her.
• The “voice she used for both orders and apologies” is itself inconsistent: a single tone that carries two opposite messages.

Step 3: What values do the inconsistencies represent? The mother values her daughter’s success and does not want to burden her, but also fears being left. Amara values her work and her mother. The contradiction shows that the mother’s two values conflict, and Amara has to decide without being told what is truly asked.

Step 4: Say how they intersect. The mother’s behaviour heightens Amara’s internal conflict: each uneaten dinner is a new weight, and the deadline makes each day count. The two conflicts squeeze Amara from inside and outside.

Step 5: Read the final image. She “set the plate down on top of” the signed letter. The objects of the two conflicts, care and ambition, are physically stacked, and care covers ambition. It does not show what she will decide, but it shows which value is on top today.

Model paragraph opening: “The mother’s contradictory words and behaviour (‘Go … Don’t mind me’ and a week of refused dinners) turn an internal conflict between Amara’s ambition and her duty into an intersecting external one, and the final image of the plate on top of the signed letter makes the conflict visible as an arrangement of objects.”

Strong and weak statements about conflict

Weak	Why it is weak	Stronger
“Macbeth and Lady Macbeth argue.”	Names a quarrel; no values	“Macbeth values restraint and reputation where Lady Macbeth values daring, and the word ‘man’ is the field of their dispute.”
“Amara is torn.”	A label	“Amara’s signed but unsent letter, set against her mother’s refused dinners, shows ambition and duty pulling in opposite directions.”
“There is conflict between characters.”	Vague	“The mother’s words (‘Don’t mind me’) contradict her behaviour, so the conflict is also inside the mother.”

Checking your inference

1. Have you named the values on each side? If not, you have named a quarrel.
2. Have you said whether it is internal, external or both?
3. Have you said how conflicts intersect? And which one heightens which.
4. Have you used a contradiction as evidence? Words against action is a strong sign.

Common misconceptions

• “Conflict means a fight.” It can be silent: a refusal, a contradiction, an unsent letter.
• “Every text has one conflict.” Most longer works have several, and they interact.
• “Internal conflict is less important than external conflict.” Often the internal conflict is the heart of the work.
• “The conflict is solved when the plot ends.” A conflict may be settled, shifted or left open.
• “Both sides in a conflict are good and bad.” Treat the values as values. Say what each side holds important, not who is right.
• “Naming the characters in conflict is enough.” Name the values.

Where this leads

Try the practice questions, then use the checklist and revision notes. The next topic, From claim-and-evidence paragraph to defensible thesis, turns analysis like this into an essay’s central claim. For conflict in earlier forms, see Plot: how events are ordered and why.