4.1.1 Oliver Watson’s Inner Conflict
After Oliver’s eighteen years marriage, Sarah, Oliver’s wife decides to go to Harvard to get her master’s degree. Schools in Harvard mean that Sarah has to
separate with her family in a long distance. And of course, it is a hard decision from Sarah that Oliver ever heard. At once Oliver refuses it because he thinks a
family can not be separate, their children need their mother. But Sarah ensures Oliver that all are not true.
It becomes the bigger conflict of Oliver’s Watson that is happening in this novel. He is not ready when his wife Sarah decides to go to Harvard to get her
master’s degree. By Sarah’s left him, it means that Oliver have to live alone to see their children grow up, and leave his dream to live a big happy family a beautiful
wife, four kids, and a dog in a country. He thinks a family cannot live separate, especially for husband and wife. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to make
Sarah feels guilty because of her decision. Oliver wants to make Sarah‘s dream become a journalist come true. He wants Sarah chasing her dream and let her go
to get her master degree in Harvard. By this situation, Oliver has his inner conflict. Conflict comes when
people have to choose, Oliver finds his inner conflict when he has to choose his own dream with happy family or her wife’s dream.
At last, Oliver makes a decision by let Sarah, his wife, to go to Harvard. He considers that Sarah has her own rights to make a choice in her life. With his
heart, Oliver supports Sarah to do what she thinks good for her and her family.
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As quoted:
“It’s your mother decision, Son. We can’t stand in her way. And she hasn’t given us much choice. She believes she’s doing
the right thing and we just have to make the best of it and support her.”
Steel, Daddy, 1987: 77
This solution brings Oliver a way out from his inner conflict. He puts aside his ego and finds a solution.
4.1.2 Oliver Watson’s Outer Conflict
In this novel, Oliver has conflict with another character, but the most conflict happen in the novel is when Oliver has a conflict with his wife, Sarah.
Sarah McCormick is Oliver’s wife. She is a beautiful woman. Her eyes are blue and bright, her creamy skin is still fine and for the most part unlined, but
there are tiny traces of time here and there. They just give her face more expression.
As quoted:
“She was a pretty woman, and she had been a pretty girl, long and lean, with a good figure and graceful hands, and a sense of humor that dance
in her eyes.” Steel, Daddy, 1987: 5
As Oliver, Sarah is a smart person. She has graduated from Radcliffe in 1969 and gets the best mark. She is the assistant of the Crimson and a good
writer. Her writing has been published twice in the Atlantic Monthly and in the New Yorker.
As quoted:
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“Sarah McCormick, the rebel, the assistant editor of the Crimson, the girl who had graduated from Radcliffe in 1969 at
the top of her class and knew she was different becomes one of them.”
Steel, Daddy, 1987: 1 “She had got to live in Soho, in New York, and tried to write,
and she had actually done pretty well. She’d been published twice in the Atlantic Monthly, and once… holy of holies…in the
New Yorker. She was good and she knew it.” Steel, Daddy, 1987: 2
Sarah loves to make a rebellion. Her courage and her rabid determination to stick by what she believes in, sometimes make her looks stubborn.
She does not like marriage and she does not want to. For her, marriage is only for women who need support and cannot stand alone. And she believes she
does not. As quoted:
“…Marriage is for women who are looking for someone who support them. I want to take care of myself, Oliver Watson.”
Steel, Daddy, 1987: 3
Oliver, himself does not know why Sarah has agreed to marry him. Sarah realizes that she loves Oliver and can not refuse to marry with Oliver and to fall
in love with him. After they eighteen years marriage, Sarah, Oliver’s wife decides to go to
Harvard to get her master’s degree. This situation brings Oliver and Sarah to a conflict. They always have a quarrel at home. Oliver thinks that Sarah becomes
mad or feeling bored with all she has. As quoted:
“You need a good shrink, that’s what you need. You’re acting like a bored, neurotic housewife.”
Steel, Daddy, 1987: 55
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Sarah, on the other sides, believes that what she wants is true. Sarah thinks that it is the time for her to get her life. She cannot wait any longer.
“You don’t know anything about me… You don’t know what it is like. Giving up everything
you’ve ever dreamed of. You’ve got it all, a career, a family, a wife waiting to bring you newspaper and fetch
your slippers. Well, what about me, God damn it When do I get mine? When do I get to do what I want
to do? When you’re dead, when the kids are gone, when I’m ninety? Well, I’m not going to wait that long.
I want it now, before I’m too old to give a damn anymore, or enjoy it. I’m not going to sir around and
wait until you start calling our children because you can figure out whether I got lost when I went shopping,
or I was so goddamn tired of my life. I just decided not to come home again. I’m not waiting for that Oliver
Watson
Steel, Daddy, 1987: 55
By this situation Oliver had to choose between his dream and Sarah that he himself cannot choose which one is the best for them. This conflict besides
brings Oliver his inner conflict but also brings him to his outer conflict. In the end Oliver make a decision that he has to put aside his ego to let his wife to go to
Harvard and chasing her dream. Oliver finds his solution.
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3.2.1 Benjamin Watson
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