AP® English Literature and Composition review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/lit/units/3/3-5)
Unit 3 · Topic 3.5
3.5 Conflict: internal, external and tangled together
Conflict is a clash between opposing forces, inside a character or between a character and something outside them. Longer works usually have several conflicts that overlap and make each other worse. How those conflicts play out shows what the characters, and the work, value.
Key terms
- conflict
- internal conflict
- external conflict
- tension
- competing values
Conflict is a clash of values
Conflict isn't just fighting. At its core, it's tension between competing values or desires. Love against duty. Ambition against loyalty. Truth against safety. Even a fistfight usually stands for some deeper clash.
Internal and external
| Type | Where the clash is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Internal (psychological) | Inside a character's mind | A woman torn between her family's wishes and her own |
| External: another person | Between characters | Two brothers competing for the same inheritance |
| External: society | Between a character and a group, law or custom | A man fighting a town's prejudice |
| External: nature | Between a character and the natural world | A sailor caught in a storm |
Conflicts that intersect
Longer works rarely have just one conflict. A character might be fighting a powerful enemy, arguing with a friend and doubting themselves all at once. These conflicts cross over: the external pressure feeds the internal doubt, and the doubt makes the external fight harder. A second or third conflict can make the main one sharper by raising the stakes or blocking the easy solutions.
When you analyze, try naming the main conflict, then show how one other conflict feeds into it. That's often where the work's meaning sits.
Inconsistencies reveal conflicts
Pay attention when a character contradicts themselves, says one thing and does another, or when the work presents two views that can't both be right. Those inconsistencies aren't mistakes. They usually mark a conflict of values or perspectives that the work wants you to notice.
Following a conflict through a work
In a novel or play, conflict develops. It usually starts small, builds through complications, peaks at the climax and then resolves, or refuses to. Track three things as you read: what each side wants, what keeps either side from simply winning, and what the outcome costs. A conflict that ends with a "win" can still show a loss of something the work values.
The way a conflict resolves is often the clearest statement of a work's values. If the character who chooses honesty is punished, the work may be criticizing a dishonest society. If a character wins their outer fight but loses their inner one, the work may be suggesting that some victories aren't worth having.
Words for describing conflict precisely
- Instead of "fights with," try "resists," "defies," "gives in to," "bargains with" or "is torn between."
- Name the values, not just the people: "Antigone's loyalty to her brother against Creon's loyalty to the state."
- Say how the conflict changes: "deepens," "shifts from outer to inner," "is left unresolved."
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Internal conflict in a famous speech
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet (written around 1600), Prince Hamlet has learned from his father's ghost that his uncle Claudius murdered his father and married his mother. Hamlet has sworn revenge but keeps delaying. In Act 3, Scene 1, he says: "To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?" Explain the internal conflict in these lines and how it connects to the play's external conflict.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Identify the two sides. One choice is to "suffer," enduring bad luck passively. The other is to "take arms," fighting back against troubles. (The speech goes on to weigh death itself, so Hamlet is also asking whether life is worth enduring at all.)
- Step 2: Notice that he frames it as a question of what is "nobler." This is a clash of values: patience and endurance versus action.
- Step 3: Look at the images. "Slings and arrows" make suffering sound like an attack; "a sea of troubles" is endless, something you can't really fight with weapons. The images suggest action may be hopeless.
- Step 4: Connect to the external conflict: Hamlet's struggle against Claudius stays stalled in part because of this inner debate.
Answer: Model paragraph: In these lines Hamlet's internal conflict becomes a debate over what is "nobler": to "suffer" the blows of fortune or to "take arms" against them. The choice of images reveals how trapped he feels. Bad fortune attacks with "slings and arrows," so simply enduring it means standing still under fire, yet the alternative is to fight "a sea of troubles," an image of something so vast that weapons are useless against it. Neither option looks winnable. This inner struggle is exactly what keeps Hamlet's external conflict with Claudius frozen: until he can settle whether action is noble or pointless, his revenge remains a plan rather than a deed. The speech shows the play's two conflicts locked together, each making the other worse.
Common mistakes
- Naming the conflict type ("man vs. society") and stopping. Explain what values are clashing and what the conflict reveals.
- Treating conflicts as separate. Show how they connect.
- Seeing contradictions in a character as the writer's errors. They usually signal an internal conflict.
On the exam
- Multiple-choice passages from plays often turn on a character's divided feelings. Questions may ask what a speech reveals about a character's conflict.
- In the literary argument essay, explaining how two conflicts intersect is a reliable way to build a line of reasoning with depth.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
3 questions on 3.5 Conflict: internal, external and tangled together. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House (1879), Act III, translated by R. Farquharson Sharp (1910)
The central conflict in the passage is best described as a clash between
Helmer's short, exclaiming lines in paragraphs 15–23 (such as “Nora, Nora!” and “What sort of madness is this!”) mainly convey
Susan Glaspell, Trifles (first performed 1916), from Plays (1920)
Hale's comment that “women are used to worrying over trifles” (paragraph 9), followed by the stage direction that the women “move a little closer together” (paragraph 10), suggests that
0 of 3 answered