Conflict: Georg Polti Plots or Storylines - The 36 Dramatic or Tragic Situations
Abstract
Wise Women Discuss—Plot!
Conflict
Every dramatic situation, Polti says, springs from a conflict (one might modify this to "struggle") between two principle directions of effort—explicit or concealed.
Almost every story ever told has at its heart a conflict—a clash of interests or beliefs; one person wants to do one thing, another wants to stop them, explicitly or otherwise but both sides must be seen by readers to be, in some sense, justified for them to accept the situation. The conflict can be:
- Within a person
- Conflict of two loyalties
- Love against patriotism
- Between ends and means, or metaphysical and secular values
- Between two or more people eg clashes of temperament, ideas, values, rivalry (eg sexual)
- Between a person and something non-human eg a god, fate (fate versus volition), chance, genetic determinism.
- a man wanting the powers of a god eg Frankenstein
- a man wanting immortality in some sense
- Struggle between generations
- Attrition of characters by time (Sagas)
- …by biological decay
- …by social changes
- Man’s natural instincts versus the limits put by society.
- Sexual drive
- …versus marital convention or incest taboo or other social obstacles
- …of a woman against her need for emancipation
- …against spiritual needs
- Individual needs versus social needs or obligations—tribe, class, nation, society
- Sensitive hero against insensitive society
- …over aesthetic values
- …over ethical values
- Explicit or implied
At least two elements are implied, usually but not necessarily characters, and there are two beginnings depending on which of the two principals pre-exists. The appearance of the second then signals the start of the conflict and so is associated with the cause of it. The first is the protagonist, the second the antagonist. According to the writer’s desire one or other will dominate the drama depending on who has the more power, the greater chance of victory or whose character and motives the author wishes to analyse.
In all cases, though, the conflict must be valid to the audience if it is accept the situation, and both sides must be seen to have a case. We tend to dread the victor and pity the vanquished, but both antagonist and protagonist are aspects of ourselves, so both must exist in their own right. It is impossible to love or hate a cartoon character or a stage prop unless we are immature. To be believable, the villain cannot be entirely bad. There has to be room for sympathy for him. Equally, the best heroes have to be flawed, because no one is perfect. Black and white is rarely as interesting as tone and colour, and the same is true of characters.
