Etymology and Meanings of Literary Device of Conflict
Etymologically, the term conflict is stated to have emerged out of a Latin term, conflictus. It means to strike together, or be against the other thing. Later, in 1640, it entered the French language as a conflict and then in English with the meanings changing to struggle or contest. The word conflict is in use in psychological, international relations, and strategic studies along with literature.
In grammar, conflict is a noun. Its plural is conflicts which could be changed according to its role in a sentence such as conflictual, conflicting, conflictive, and conflicts.
Definition of Literary Device of Conflict
As a literary term, conflict means a struggle, a contest, or contention between two characters, opposite parties, two natural events, or even two human-induced issues. It leads to tension in the story or the literary piece, creating suspense for the readers until the resolution arrives.
Types of Conflicts as Literary Device
There are five major types of conflicts.
- Man against man
- Man against nature
- Man against objects or animals
- Man against himself
- Main against social forces
Literary Examples of Conflict
Example # 1
From The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
“Who are the wizards?” asked Dorothy. “Oz himself is the Great Wizard,” answered the Witch, sinking her voice to a whisper. “He is more powerful than all the rest of us together. He lives in the City of Emeralds.” Dorothy was going to ask another question, but just then the Munchkins, who had been standing silently by, gave a loud shout and pointed to the corner of the house where the Wicked Witch had been lying.
Although this is a short extract from a popular novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it shows the emergence of tension. The conversation of Dorothy with the Witch shows that Dorothy wants to confront Oz yet she does not know how. This creates a conflict in her mind about her power and the power of the Witch. Although she gets involved in this conflict in the novel, this passage shows how it emerges from the simple conversation into the physical world. This is a type of man-against-supernatural conflict.
Example # 2
From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
“All right, I’ll keep still. Now they’re stuck. Can’t find it. Here they come again. Now they’re hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot! They’re p’inted right, this time. Say Huck, I know another o’ them voices; it’s Injun Joe.” “That’s so –– that murderin’ half-breed! I’d druther they was devils a dern sight. What kin they be up to?” The whispers died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the grave and stood within a few feet of the boys’ hiding-place.”
Although this short conversation between Injun Joe and Huck takes place in a tight place, it shows how the conflict is going to ensue between them. Injun Joe wants to keep his crime under the carpet, while he also fears that Huck would disclose it to the law enforcement agencies. This creates a conflict between them which also is a theme of the novel. This is a type of man-again-man conflict.
Example # 3
From The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as el mar which is masculine. They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.
This passage occurs in The Old Man and the Sea. This is a classic of Hemingway that presents an old man, Santiago, struggling alone against the marlin as well as the world. This passage, however, presents his conflict with the sea. It means that this is a type of man-versus-nature conflict.
Example # 4
From All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Kantorek would say that we stood on the threshold of life. And so it would seem. We had yet taken no root. The war swept us away. For the others, the older men, it is but an interruption. They are able to think beyond it. We, however, have been gripped by it and do not know what the end may be. We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a wasteland. All the same, we are not often sad.
This passage occurs in the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, an anti-war story by a German writer, Erich Maria Remarque. This passage shows clearly that Paul Baumer knows that he is against war. This creates a conflict in him that lasts until he is dead by the end of the novel. This is a man-versus-society as the war ensues due to animosity between two social structures.
Example # 5
From The Black Boy by Richard Wright
It was in this tenement that the personality of my father first came fully into the orbit of my concern. He worked as a night porter in a Beale Street drugstore and he became important and forbidding to me only when I learned that I could not make noise when he was asleep in the daytime. He was the lawgiver in our family and I never laughed in his presence. I used
to lurk timidly in the kitchen doorway and watch his huge body sitting slumped at the table. I stared at him with awe as he gulped his beer from a tin bucket, as he ate long and heavily, sighed, belched, closed his eyes to nod on a stuffed belly. He was quite fat and his bloated stomach always lapped over his belt. He was always a stranger to me, always somehow
alien and remote.
Although this short passage from The Black Boy, a memoir of Richard Wright, shows his feelings toward his father, it also shows that he is in conflict with his father which is man-versus-man conflict. He sees his father struggling and ruling the household at the same time.
Example # 6
From Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
George stared morosely at the water. The rims of his eyes were red with sun glare. He said angrily, “We could just as well of rode clear to the ranch if that bastard bus driver knew what he was talkin’ about. ‘Jes’ a little stretch down the highway,’ he says. ‘Jes’a little stretch.’ God damn near four miles, that’s what it was! Didn’t wanta stop at the ranch gate, that’s what. Too God damn lazy to pull up. Wonder he isn’t too damn good to stop in Soledad
at all. Kicks us out and says ‘Jes’ a little stretch down the road.’ I bet it was more than four miles. Damn hot day.
This passage shows George and Lennie facing the world. They are against the entire social fabric of their time. First, George spoke against the drive, then against God, and then against the hot day. This shows that everything is in conflict with them as they are facing hardships not knowing from whom. This shows man-versus-nature and man-versus-man conflict simultaneously.
How to Create a Conflict
- Plan ahead your storyline and decide what type of conflict you want to insert in it.
- After deciding the conflict, place that man with his desires, hopes, and ambitions and create obstructions on his way through the agent that is going against him in conflict.
- Create a situation showing suspense, and decide how you want to resolve that conflict.
- Present various types of conflicts simultaneously like that of The Old Man and the Sea and Of Mice and Men as shown in examples.
Benefits of Using Conflict
- It creates suspense, curiosity, and thirst in the readers to read the fiction or poem until the end.
- It makes the readers demonstrate empathy, or sympathy, or catharsis in Grecian terms.
- It makes readers aware of how to deal with conflicts and resolve them in real life.
- It makes the readers to thinking critically and find solutions to problems.
Literary Device of Conflict in Literary Theory
- As a literary term, conflict is an integral part of every other literary theory. However, in formalism, it is necessary as it is part of narratology and characterization.
- It is important in postmodernism, indigenous critical studies, and critical race theory due to its association with identity, personality clash, and sovereignty and now they come into conflict with each other.
- It is an integral part of psychoanalytic literary theory as it creates conflicts based on the psychology of conflicts among different characters.
- It is also used in postcolonialism on account of its usage in power struggles and in readers response theory due to the involvement of the reader with the characters.
- It is also used in indigenous critical theory because it creates conflicts between the indigenous population and characters and the outsiders and demonstrates it through different ways.
Suggested Readings
Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary Of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press, 1996. Print.
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. Literature, Criticism, and Theory. Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2004. Print,. Al-Lehaibi, Majed S. “Conflict: A Cultural Theme in the Modern American Novel.” English Language and Literature Studies 3.2 (2013): 93.