Conflicts
In the three stories To Build a Fire, The Use of Force, and A and P there are some different conflicts. A conflict is struggle between two or more objects. In these stories the three different conflicts are man versus nature, man versus man, and man versus self. The three stories that contain these conflicts are To Build a Fire by Jack London, The Use of Force by Williams Carlos Williams, and A and P by John Updike. The first story to talk about is To Build a Fire, then The Use of Force, and lastly A and P.
The story To Build a Fire by London has one of the most unpredictable conflicts in it. The conflict in this story is man versus nature. The two forces in the story are the man and the freezing cold. In the story a man is trying to get to his destination and the cold weather is stopping him from making it their. To beat the cold the man tries to forget about being cold, chew tobacco and start a fire to stay warm. The cold does defend it by freezing the tobacco on his beard and putting out the fire with some snow. Through out this struggle between man versus nature, nature comes out victorious.
In the story The Use of Force the conflict is probably the most common in stories. In this story by williams, he uses man versus man conflict. The doctor and the young girl are the two forces that are going against each other. The problem is that the doctor is trying to figure out why the girl is sick but he cant because she will not open her mouth. The three ways the doctor tried to over come this problem was to get her to believe that he was there to help, get the parents to help him and also tried to use a spatula. The girl still didnt open her mouth but when she did
, she broke the spatula. All though she broke the spatula, the doctor finally came and with the upper hand.
In Updikes story A and P the conflict is very unusual. The conflict in this story is man versus self. The two forces in this story are Sammy economic well being and his conscious.
The problem is Sammy needs the job for money but his conscious takes over. Sammy tries to tell himself that he needs the job for money and his boss is friends with his parents but the conscious fights back with feelings for the girls, a chance to get in good with the girls and the job is boring any way. At the end of this conflict between man versus self, self ends up winning.
In these stories you can see the variety of conflicts that may arise. The conflicts man versus nature, man versus man, and man versus self are very important tools to good story. Conflicts just to the story it is important to the plot.