Conflict: Conflict is often expressed in the following terms:
man vs. man
man vs. society
Write a paragraph that identifies the central conflict of the narrative and show how that conflict is both developed and resolved.
Ex: Struggling against the forces of a democratic government can often seem daunting, but that struggle pales in comparison to struggling against the unbridled power of a totalitarian regime. In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four Winston’s essential conflict is best described as Man vs. Society. Winston sees the injustice in a government that continually alters history by rewriting historical records and destroying the truth. He lives in a state of perpetual angst when confronted daily by the illogical contradictory platitudes, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength” (Orwell, 1948, p. 3). Winston is a paranoid individual who is constantly worried that his thoughts will betray him - that he is guilty of “thought crime”. He grapples with blatantly illogical doublespeak and cannot reconcile himself to an easy peace with the political environment in which he exists. In Nineteen Eighty-Four the eventual resolution of Winston’s conflict with society only transpires when he loses the struggle, when he is broken by the indisputable power of the totalitarian state. One learns through the experience of reading this narrative that the power of the state will almost always triumph over the will of the individual. Conflict with society, that entails a struggle to reconcile oneself with an illegitimate state, is not likely to end on a positive note.
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