8

Conflict

Conflict, on the other hand, is what disturbs a character. It can be internal or external. If conflict is internal, it resides within the character. In this case, a character may not want to go into the pet store to look at dogs because he remembers getting bitten by a dog on his newspaper route as a child; and he can’t bring himself to even look at them, even though he wants to buy one for his girlfriend. If the conflict is external, it resides outside the character. In this case, a character may try to buy a dog, but it is too expensive and the owner won’t let him have it for less money. Will he punch the owner in the nose, will he steal the dog when the owner isn’t looking, or will he go work harder and come back when he can pay for it?

In Hard Times we find a notable moment of external conflict when Dickens pushes Mr. Bounderby, who has concealed the truth about his upbringing throughout the story, to the brink of exposure, during which he is publicly humiliated:

Mr Bounderby’s visage exhibited an extraordinary combination of all possible colours and expressions of discomfiture, as old Mrs Pegler was disclosed to his view. “Why, what do you mean by this?” was his highly unexpected demand. “Sir!” exclaimed Mrs Sparsit, faintly.

“Why don’t you mind your own business, ma’am?” roared Bounderby. “How dare you go and poke your officious nose into my family affairs?” This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs Sparsit. She sat down stiffly in a chair…. (251-252)

Here we find Mr. Bounderby and Mrs. Sparsit in all-out verbal struggle. Insults are thrown; emotions, overpowered. Conflict occurs when a character is so disturbed he is forced to react; the greater the disturbance, the greater the reaction. Consider the case of Mr. Bounderby. Not only has he concealed the truth about his upbringing throughout the story, he has positioned himself as the man who picked himself up by his own boot straps and made something of himself despite the absence of any and all opportunity, a lie he uses to justify his judgmental attitude toward the uneducated labors who slave for him in his factory. He of all Dickens’ characters in the story must conceal the truth; he must hide it, for if the truth be told it would shame him red. Louisa, on the other hand, experiences internal conflict when Dickens pits her inner desire against her father Mr. Gradgrind’s external pressure:

“You are, we will say in round numbers, twenty years of age; Mr Bounderby is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in your respective years, but in your means and positions there is none….The disparity I have mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be disparity, and (virtually) all but disappears.”

“What do you recommend, father,” asked Louisa.

“Confining yourself rigidly to Fact, the question of Fact you state to yourself is: Does Mr Bounderby ask me to marry him? Yes, he does. The sole remaining question then is: Shall I marry him?”

“Shall I marry him?” repeated Louisa, with great deliberation.

“Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my dear Louisa….” (98)

Throughout this interaction between Louisa and Mr. Gradgrind, Mr. Gradgrind dispassionately presents Louisa with the pressure of marrying Mr. Bounderby, a man twice her age; yet throughout, Louisa struggles to express her feelings by asking her father whether or not she should do what she secretly does not want to do. Dickens writes: “Perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart” (99). As Mr. Gradgrind continues to pressure Louisa, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to openly and honestly communicate her desires.

Whether you decide to incorporate internal or external conflict or any combination of the two, remember, a story must have conflict. A story isn’t interesting without it. So allow your reader to experience as much conflict as you are capable of conjuring. Be willing to place your characters in the most perilous and alarming moments of distress imaginable. In short, let your characters experience “hard times.”