Conflict and Irony
Overview
This study session addresses two additional literary elements: conflict and irony.
Life, as you well know, is rife with conflict, a situation in which two aspects or forces are opposed to one another. Any problem or challenge essentially involves conflict, because it involves opposing and overcoming one or more obstacles or barriers in order to achieve success.
Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire” vividly illustrates two forms of conflict: internal conflict and external conflict.
Internal conflict occurs within the mind of an individual. Here, a person attempts to resolve opposing forces in order to arrive at a solution to a problem or reach a desired goal. You might experience intense internal conflict, for example, if you desperately wanted to watch an evening sporting event on television but needed to study long and hard for a major examination the following morning.
External conflict, usually more visible than internal conflict, occurs between a character and society, God, fate, another person, or a force of nature. A character’s effort to resolve conflict often becomes the central storyline of a literary work.
Irony refers to the difference between what is stated and what is meant. It may also involve a discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually does happen.
Dramatic irony is a specific type of irony in which there is a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader knows to be true. As you read “To Build a Fire,” be aware of those points when you understand more than the man in the story does.
