Types of Conflict in Literature

Conflict is the engine of narrative. It creates tension, drives plot, reveals character, and generates meaning. At HSC Advanced level, you must analyse not just what conflicts exist but how composers construct them through language, structure, and form, and what those conflicts reveal about broader human concerns.

The most sophisticated texts often present multiple, intersecting conflicts that resist simple categorisation, reflecting the layered complexity of human experience.

I

Internal Conflict

• Moral dilemmas and ethical choices
• Desire vs. duty or conscience
• Identity crisis and self-doubt
• Psychological struggle

E

External Conflict

• Person vs. person (antagonist)
• Person vs. society (oppressive systems)
• Person vs. nature (survival)
• Person vs. technology

S

Structural Conflict

• Conflict in form (fragmented narrative)
• Tension between genres
• Competing narrative voices
• Reader vs. unreliable narrator

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." — F. Scott Fitzgerald. Literature thrives on such tensions.

Patterns of Resolution

How a text resolves — or refuses to resolve — its conflicts is one of the most significant craft decisions a composer makes. Resolution shapes the text's meaning, its ideological position, and the reader's final experience.

Closed Resolution

Catharsis: Emotional release through tragic resolution (Greek tragedy)
Restoration: Order restored, justice served (comedy, romance)
Transformation: Character fundamentally changed through conflict

Example: In Pride and Prejudice, the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy resolves both personal and social conflicts, affirming values of mutual respect and self-awareness.

Open / Ambiguous Resolution

Ambiguity: Multiple interpretations left open
Irresolution: Conflict persists beyond the text's ending
Cyclical: Return to the beginning suggests repetition

Example: The ending of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men refuses closure, suggesting that violence and chaos are not resolvable within narrative or moral frameworks.

HSC Tip: Ambiguous endings are rich material for analysis. Discuss what the refusal of resolution means — what does it say about the human condition that the conflict cannot be neatly resolved?

Ambiguous Endings and Interpretive Possibility

Many of the most celebrated literary texts resist neat resolution. Ambiguous endings place the interpretive burden on the reader, generating ongoing conversation about meaning and reflecting the irreducible complexity of human experience.

The Unreliable Resolution

When the narrator or focalising character is unreliable, the apparent resolution may itself be questioned. In Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Stevens's final reflection can be read as either acceptance or devastating self-deception, and the text's power lies in maintaining both possibilities.

Tragic Irresolution

Some texts end with a resolution that is simultaneously a devastation. In Shakespeare's King Lear, the restoration of Lear's sanity is immediately undercut by Cordelia's death, creating a resolution that is more painful than the conflict itself. The "resolution" reveals a deeper truth about the indifference of the universe.

The Open Question

Some endings explicitly pose questions rather than providing answers. The final line of The Great Gatsby — "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" — resolves nothing but transforms the entire novel into a meditation on the impossibility of escaping the past.

"The most honest endings are often the most ambiguous, for they acknowledge that human conflicts rarely conclude with the neatness of narrative convention."

Key Vocabulary

Catharsis

The emotional release experienced by the audience through the resolution of conflict, particularly in tragedy; the purging of pity and fear through witnessing suffering.

Denouement

The final part of a narrative in which conflicts are resolved and loose ends are tied up; literally, the "unknotting" of the plot's complications.

Ambiguity

The quality of being open to more than one interpretation; in literature, a deliberate craft choice that invites multiple readings and resists fixed meaning.

Protagonist / Antagonist

The central character who drives the narrative (protagonist) and the opposing force — character, institution, or abstract concept — that creates conflict (antagonist).

Worked Examples

Study these model analytical paragraphs demonstrating how to analyse conflict and resolution.

Example 1: Analysing Internal Conflict

In Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, Shakespeare constructs the most famous internal conflict in English literature. The balanced syntax of the opening — "To be, or not to be" — mirrors the paralysis of a mind equally drawn to action and inaction. The extended metaphor of life as a "sea of troubles" against which one might "take arms" represents the conflict between passive endurance and active resistance, while the fear of "the undiscovered country" of death ensures the conflict remains unresolvable through reason alone.

Example 2: Analysing Person vs. Society

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch's defence of Tom Robinson constructs a conflict between individual moral courage and systemic racial injustice. The courtroom setting literalises this conflict, placing Atticus's rational argumentation against the irrational force of prejudice. The guilty verdict resolves the conflict in favour of the oppressive system, but Lee's use of Scout's innocent perspective positions the reader to recognise this resolution as a moral failure, thereby critiquing the society rather than accepting its judgement.

Example 3: Analysing Ambiguous Resolution

The final scene of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation deliberately withholds the whispered words between Bob and Charlotte, refusing the audience the closure of a definitive resolution. This ambiguity mirrors the film's central conflict between connection and isolation: the characters have found something meaningful, but whether it can survive beyond this moment is left open. The ambiguous ending thus becomes the film's argument — that genuine human connection is fragile, transient, and resistant to the narrative conventions of closure.

Knowledge Check

Test your understanding of conflict and resolution. Select the correct answer and click "Check Answer".

Question 1

Which type of conflict involves a character's struggle with their own conscience or desires?

Person vs. society Person vs. technology Person vs. nature Internal conflict (person vs. self)

Question 2

"Catharsis" in tragedy refers to:

The emotional release experienced by the audience through witnessing suffering and resolution The happy ending of a comedy The introduction of a new character The revelation of the antagonist's true identity

Question 3

An ambiguous ending in a literary text most likely serves to:

Show that the author ran out of ideas Invite multiple interpretations and reflect the irreducible complexity of human experience Set up a sequel Confuse the reader without purpose

Question 4

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the guilty verdict for Tom Robinson represents:

A satisfying resolution that upholds justice An ambiguous ending open to multiple readings A resolution that reveals systemic failure, positioned by the narrator to be read as moral critique An irrelevant subplot

Question 5

Why do the most sophisticated literary texts often contain multiple intersecting conflicts?

To make the text longer Only action novels have multiple conflicts To confuse the reader Because they reflect the layered complexity of human experience where personal, social, and moral struggles interconnect

Conflict and Resolution in Texts