Review of Related Studies
Conflict: the struggle that grows out of the interplay of the two opposing forces in a PLOT. Conflict provides interest, suspense, and tension. At
least one of the opposing forces is usually a person, or, if an animal or inanimate object, is treated as though it were a person Holman and
Harmon, 1986:107.
Usually, the character is a human being and if there is not a human, such as: an animal or not an animate object then the character is considered as human being.
Moreover, conflict itself has a role to develop the atmosphere of the story by the tension of the conflict presented in a literary work, so that a novel will become
interesting depends on how the conflict is triggered. According to Drs. Sunaryono Basuki Koesnosoebroto, M.A., in his book
entitled The Anatomy of Prose Fiction, conflict is defined as follows: “In Perrine’s
words conflict is a clash of actions, ideas, or wills Koesnosoebroto, 1988:43. ”
From the quotation conflict is defined as a situation in which there are two opposing forces with the same quality and we have to choose one of the forces.
The forces clash to each other because each of the forces have their own consequence that needs a full consideration before decide to choose one of them.
Moreover, Koesnosoebroto divides the conflict into two main types: internal conflict and external conflict. Below is the types of conflicts:
Conflict may be external or internal. Internal conflict between aspects of the personality, or external conflict between a person and an external force
another person, society, environment, nature, the universe, God Koesnosoebroto, 1988:43.
From the quotation above we can see that conflict in literature is divided into two
main types, internal conflict and external conflict. The internal conflict is the conflict that happens inside the character itself and the forces are mostly between
ideology, wills of the character and the character’s nature, while external conflict
is about the conflict that happens between the character and the other character or forces outside the character. In external conflict there are at least two opposing
forces involve, the forces are the character and the force from the outside of the character, such as the people, another character, and the external conflict also can
be the nature. Furthermore, from the internal conflict and external conflict
Koesnosoebroto expands the types of conflict into four sub-types: a.
Man-against-Man In man-against-man, the main character have a clash with an external force
and mostly the force itself is another character, but in some cases the external force can be more than one characters Koesnosoebroto, 1988:43.
b. Man-against-Environment.
The conflict of man-against-environment, the character have a different ideology, and wills with the people around the character, and the
difference becomes a conflict when the character confronts with the people around the character Koesnosoebroto, 1988:43.
c. Man-against-Himself
In man-against-himself, there is a clash between character ’s wills or idea
and the character’s own nature, such as the bad habits or the emotions.This
kind of conflict occurs on the character himselfherself, and in this conflict the character struggles to change hisher own nature Koesnosoebroto,
1988:43.
d. Man-against-Nature
The conflict of man against nature, the character fights against the natural forces such as the weather, the geographical situations. In this type of
conflict the character struggles against the natural forces in order to fulfill the character’s wills Koesnosoebroto, 1988:43.