Post Two: Conflict

Conflict: 

Conflict is a major factor in a story, and can tell a lot about a character. Before class I was definitely one to think that conflict was more about the plot, but it makes more sense no how it deals with more of the characterization. Each character in the stories we read had a conflict but the one the reached me the most was Elena. When you want something bad enough, some people will take extraordinary measures to get there. For Elena it was a child of her own. The conflict begins when Elena loses her newborn child, and finds out shortly after that she is unable to have any more children. I would consider the fact that she is unable to have any more children a “block “ to her desire. She is this woman who is madly in love with children and would live her life around them. This is when she decides to make dolls to resemble real life babies. At this point in time Elena is losing touch with what is real and what is not. She feels as if she has not felt pain, and that’s all she wants to find. She starts drifting from her husband, the real world, and herself. The making of these dolls has created Elena to pretty much become delusional and has lost touch with what’s human and what’s mechanical. Another block to her desire would be when she becomes suicidal, because at this point there is no going back, she has hit rock bottom. The resolution to the conflict is she thinks everything is an algorithm, and that her life is over. In my opinion if she would have just mourned over her child and tried to move on and live a happy life with her husband, her life would have been just fine.  She took the worst route and ended up destroying her life. Her character definitely produced a good conflict for the story.

            It will be interesting to read more stories and be able to know that the conflict doesn’t just have to do with the plot of the story, that it’s the character and its desires that make the conflict. I like how now when I read I actually think more about it and don’t just blow the important facts of a story off.  I like being able to point out key facts, and to describe the conflict in other ways than before.