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In narrative, an internal conflict is the struggle occurring within a character's mind. Things such as what the character yearns for, but can't quite reach. As opposed to external conflict, in which a character is grappling some force outside of themself, such as wars or a chain-breaking off a bike, or not being able to get past a roadblock.
Conflict may be internal or external—that is, it may occur within a character's mind or between a character and exterior forces, (or point(s) of view). Conflict is most visible between two or more characters, usually a protagonist and an antagonist/enemy/villain, but can occur in many different forms. A character may as easily find themselves ...
This understanding of internal conflict is commonly used in storytelling for character building. Every narrative starts with a problem; an obstacle inhibiting the protagonist's plans and motivations. Such impediment is often embodied by a second character – the antagonist – and presents itself as the stressor that needs to be eliminated.
It also, in a succinct way, dramatizes many of Dostoevsky's interior conflicts. An example of a "bonus material" style inner story is the chapter "The Town Ho's Story" in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; that chapter tells a fully formed story of an exciting mutiny and contains many plot ideas that Melville had conceived during the early ...
The inner nature of this conflict sets existential crises apart from other types of crises that are mainly due to outward circumstances, like social or financial crises. Outward circumstances may still play a role in triggering or exacerbating an existential crisis, but the core conflict happens on an inner level. [3]
In character development, both modern and postmodern literature explore subjectivism, turning from external reality to examine inner states of consciousness, in many cases drawing on modernist examples in the "stream of consciousness" styles of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, or explorative poems like The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. In addition ...
Narrowly speaking, the conflict is the major problem a protagonist, or main character, encounters across a story. Often, a protagonist additionally struggles with a sense of anxiety, insecurity, indecisiveness, or other mental difficulty as result of this conflict, which can be regarded as a secondary or internal conflict. Longer works of ...
Example: Agamemnon (play) Falling prey to cruelty/misfortune. an unfortunate; a master or a misfortune; The unfortunate suffers from misfortune and/or at the hands of the master. Example: Job (biblical figure) Revolt. a tyrant; a conspirator; The tyrant, a cruel power, is plotted against by the conspirator. Example: Julius Caesar (play) Daring ...