Seven Types of Conflict

Seven Types of Conflict

Let's be honest—literature would be a little boring without conflict. As painful as it is to read about our favorite characters going through hardships, these struggles are necessary to keep us engaged, entertained, and turning pages.

Given the amount of literature in the world, it's inevitable that there will be variations in the types of conflict characters experience. Of course, each type is not mutually exclusive; stories often have overlapping struggles, containing multiple characters and storylines. For example, in Les Misérables, Jean Valjean is in conflict with his society, himself, and another person (Javert)—not to mention the different conflicts other characters experience amongst each other!

Considering the many types of conflict that exist within literature, let's look at seven of the most common, using examples from famous novels to illustrate each type.

Person vs. Person

Conflict that pits one person against another is about as classic as a story can get. This type of conflict is pretty much self-explanatory, with one person struggling for victory over another. There are countless examples of this type of conflict in literature.

In fact, the instances throughout the history of literature are so numerous that mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a book outlining the archetype of a hero going on a journey and overcoming an enemy. The book eventually inspired George Lucas to create the character of Luke Skywalker. Another example, mentioned in the introduction, is the conflict between Javert and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, who clash due to their conflicting opinions on justice and mercy.

Person vs. Self

In this type of conflict, a character finds him or herself battling between two competing desires or selves, typically one good and one evil. You won't get a more obvious example than The Call of the Wild, in which the protagonist (in this case, a dog) is torn between a domesticated self and wild self.

Person vs. Fate/God(s)

This type of conflict occurs when a character is trapped by an inevitable destiny; freedom and free will often seem impossible in these stories. You'll find this trope in Greek tragedy: Oedipus is fated to marry his own mother and Odysseus finds himself sailing throughout the Mediterranean due to the anger of Poseidon. What can humans do in the face of the gods and fate? Only endure, it seems.

Person vs. Nature

In this type of conflict, humankind comes up against nature, battling for survival against its inexorable and apathetic force. The hero may be forced to confront nature, or the protagonist may be seeking the conflict, trying to exert dominance over nature.

Probably the most famous example of this type of conflict is Herman Melville's Moby Dick; it tells the story of a man's obsession with overcoming nature—specifically, a whale. A shorter example (and on a slightly smaller scale—smaller boat, smaller fish) is Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

Person vs. Society

Cue the dystopian genre. The person-against-society conflict follows the storyline of an individual or a group fighting (sometimes successfully, sometimes not-so-successfully) against injustices within their society.

While the characters of George Orwell's Animal Farm are animals rather than people, it still illustrates a story driven by rebellion against a society, as the characters struggle against a corrupt power structure, create a new society, and continue to experience struggles within the new society.

Person vs. the Unknown/Extraterrestrial

This is a common thread in science fiction and supernatural horror movies and books. In this type of conflict, the protagonist battles against an entity that isn't entirely known or comprehensible, whether it is extraterrestrial or metaphysical. Think of Stephen King's The Shining (or many of King's books, for that matter). On the science fiction side, H.G. Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds is an example of a group (humankind) clashing with an alien race (Martians).

Person vs. Technology/Machinery

The popularity of this genre has risen steadily over the last hundred years, and in the face of increasing mechanization and improving artificial intelligence, it's not hard to see why. This type of conflict focuses on a person or group of people fighting to overcome unemotional and unsympathetic machinery that believes it no longer requires humanity.

Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example, pits astronaut Dave Bowman against the super-intelligent HAL 9000, which believes Dave's shortcomings as a human being mean he must be forcibly removed from the mission.

Every work of literature, and much nonfiction narrative, is based on at least one of the following conflicts. When you write a story or a biography, or relate a true event or series of events, you need not focus on such themes, and there’s no reason to state them explicitly (except in passing, perhaps, to provide insight about a biographical subject), but you’re wise to identify the conflicts inherent in your composition and apply them as you write.

1. Person vs. Fate/God
This category could be considered part of conflict with self or with society (many people count only four types of conflict, including those two and conflict with another person or with nature). That’s a valid argument, as one confronts fate as part of an internal struggle and religion is a construct of society, but explicitly naming fate (Oedipus Rex) or God — or the gods (The Odyssey) — as the antagonist is a useful distinction.

2. Person vs. Self
A person’s struggle with his or her own prejudices or doubts or character flaws constitutes this type of conflict (Hamlet).

3. Person vs. Person
Any story featuring a hero and a villain or villains (The Count of Monte Cristo) represents this type of conflict, though the villain(s) is/are often representative of another antagonist in this list, whether a villain is in essence an alter ego of the protagonist (thus representing the conflict of person versus self) or stands in for society.

4. Person vs. Society
When the protagonist’s conflict extends to confronting institutions, traditions, or laws of his or her culture, he or she struggles to overcome them, either triumphing over a corrupt society (I draw a blank here), rejecting it (Fahrenheit 451), or succumbing to it (1984).

5. Person vs. Nature
In this conflict, the protagonist is pitted against nature (Robinson Crusoe) or a representation of it, often in the form of an animal (Moby Dick).

6. Person vs. Supernatural
Superficially, conflict with the supernatural may seem equivalent to conflict with fate or God, or representative of a struggle with an evocation of self (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) or nature (The Birds). But this category stands on its own feet as well.

7. Person vs. Technology
Humanity’s innate skepticism about the wonders of technology has resulted in many stories in which antagonists use technology to gain power or in which technology takes over or becomes a malign influence on society (Brave New World).