AP English Literature and Composition

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain what **conflict** means in longer fiction and drama
- Distinguish between **internal** and **external** conflict and show how they interact
- Analyse how a sequence of events develops conflict across a plot
- Connect conflict to characterization, turning points, and theme
- Avoid plot summary by turning narrative events into literary argument
- Write stronger AP Literary Argument claims about conflict in a work as a whole

## AP English Literature and Composition Syllabus

For the AP English Literature and Composition, you are expected to understand conflict in extended narratives, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that **conflict** is a struggle or tension that shapes plot, character, and meaning
- Identify the difference between **internal conflict** and **external conflict**
- Explain how a particular **sequence of events** in a plot develops and intensifies conflict
- Understand that conflict in novels and plays developss across multiple scenes or chapters through cause and effect
- Analyse how conflict reveals motives, divided loyalties, fears, values, and changes in characters
- Connect conflict to the **work as a whole**, not just to isolated moments
- Recognise that AP prompts may test conflict indirectly through ideas such as indecision, rebellion, secrecy, memory, or unfulfilled desire
- Use specific textual evidence and commentary rather than plot summary in FRQ 3 responses

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What is the difference between internal and external conflict in a novel or play?
2. Why is conflict in an extended narrative more than just a single argument or dramatic scene?
3. How can the order of events change a reader’s understanding of a conflict?
4. In an FRQ 3 essay, how do you move from discussing conflict to discussing the work as a whole?
5. Why do strong AP essays analyse what conflict does, not just what conflict is?

## Introduction

Conflict is one of the main engines of longer fiction and drama. Without it, plot becomes a list of events. With it, events gain pressure, characters make revealing choices, and readers begin to see what a work suggests about power, identity, loyalty, desire, fear, or moral responsibility.

In AP Literature, conflict matters because it is rarely just “a problem in the story.” It is a structural force. It creates turning points, delays resolution, exposes character, and shapes theme. A strong essay does not merely spot conflict; it explains how the conflict develops and why that development matters to the meaning of the work.

> **Key Term: conflict**
> A struggle, tension, or opposition in a literary work that shapes plot, reveals character, and contributes to meaning.

### Types of conflict: what students must distinguish

The first distinction to master is between **internal** and **external** conflict. This seems simple, but students often stop too early and label a conflict without analysing it.

> **Key Term: internal conflict**
> A struggle within a character’s mind, values, emotions, desires, fears, or obligations.
>
> **Key Term: external conflict**
> A struggle between a character and an outside force, such as another character, society, authority, nature, or fate.

Internal conflict is not just “the character is upset.” It usually involves incompatible pressures. A character may want love but fear vulnerability. A character may value truth but dread the cost of speaking it. A character may feel loyalty to family while also feeling loyalty to law or conscience. That tension matters because it forces decisions, and decisions expose character.

External conflict is not just “two characters disagree.” In literary study, external conflict matters when it produces real stakes. A clash between protagonist and antagonist may test power, class, morality, or survival. In some works, the antagonist is a person. In others, it is a system, a social code, a war, a harsh environment, or a fate the character cannot fully escape.

Students often miss the fact that the strongest works combine both. A character may appear to be battling society, but the deeper struggle may be within the self. For example, a social rule can intensify guilt, hesitation, or self-division. Likewise, an inner fear can make an external obstacle more powerful.

> **Key Term: protagonist**
> The central character whose desires, choices, and conflicts most strongly shape the work’s development.
>
> **Key Term: antagonist**
> A character or opposing force that creates major resistance to the protagonist.

A useful way to think is this:

- External conflict creates pressure from outside
- Internal conflict determines how the character experiences that pressure
- The interaction of both creates depth

Take a familiar kind of case: a character faces social pressure to marry for status rather than affection. Externally, the character faces family expectation and class codes. Internally, the character may struggle between desire, pride, duty, and fear. If you analyse only the social rule, you miss the psychological struggle. If you analyse only emotion, you miss the social meaning. AP essays do best when they show both.

> **Test Tip:** If you name a conflict type, do not stop there. Add a second sentence beginning with “This matters because…” and explain what the conflict reveals or changes.

### Conflict as plot: sequence, escalation, and turning points

In Unit 3, conflict is tied closely to **plot**, especially to the function of a sequence of events. That means you should think less about isolated scenes and more about development over time.

> **Key Term: plot**
> The arrangement and development of events in a literary work, especially the cause-and-effect pattern through which conflict developss.

In an extended narrative, conflict is sustained. It grows through linked events. One choice leads to a consequence, which creates a new pressure, which leads to another choice. This is why summary and analysis are not the same. Summary says what happened next. Analysis explains why that next event matters.

A strong line of reasoning often follows this pattern:

literary structure or event sequence -> rising conflict and stakes -> character response -> larger meaning

Suppose a protagonist hides a secret. Early concealment may seem protective. Later, the same concealment may isolate the character, damage relationships, and force increasingly desperate choices. The conflict is not just “the character has a secret.” The important issue is how the sequence of events turns secrecy into a trap and what that says about shame, identity, or social judgment.

This is also where **turning points** matter. A turning point is not always the loudest scene. It is the moment after which the conflict changes shape. A private realization, a letter, an accusation, a refusal, or a delayed confession may all function as turning points.

Students commonly make three mistakes here:

1. They retell the whole plot instead of selecting key moments
2. They treat each event separately instead of linking them causally
3. They mention escalation without explaining what raises the stakes

To avoid that, ask four questions about any major event:

- What conflict is active here?
- How does this event intensify, redirect, or delay it?
- What does the character’s response reveal?
- How does this move the work toward a larger meaning?

For example, if a character hesitates at a critical moment, do not only say “this shows indecision.” Explain what kind of indecision it is. Is the character morally torn? Emotionally afraid? Trapped between self-interest and principle? Then explain the consequence. Does the hesitation cost trust, increase danger, or expose a tragic flaw?

> **Key Term: turning point**
> A moment in a plot when a conflict shifts, deepens, or moves toward a new stage.

Plot order also shapes judgment. If a writer delays key information, the audience may first judge a character harshly and only later understand the motive. That change in understanding is part of the work’s meaning. Likewise, flashbacks, delayed revelations, or in medias res openings can make conflict feel unstable because readers do not yet have the full cause.

That matters on the exam because AP often rewards analysis of **how** a narrative developss, not just **what** it contains.

> **Test Tip:** In an essay paragraph, choose 2-3 linked events rather than 5 scattered ones. Fewer events with stronger commentary usually score better than broad summary.

### Conflict and characterization: how struggle reveals identity

Conflict is one of the best tools for analysing character because people are most revealing under pressure. A calm character description may tell you what someone seems like. Conflict shows what that person values when values collide.

That is why textbook guidance often stresses protagonist and antagonist. The protagonist often carries a large share of the work’s concerns. Through that character’s struggles, the author can examine marriage, war, class, justice, faith, freedom, ambition, or self-knowledge.

Conflict reveals character in at least four ways:

#### Motive

What does the character want strongly enough to endure pain, embarrassment, or risk? Desire gives conflict shape.

#### Limitation

What blocks the character from acting freely? This may be fear, pride, social convention, ignorance, or divided loyalty.

#### Change

Does the character grow, harden, collapse, awaken, or remain trapped? Conflict often produces transformation, but sometimes the point is failure to change.

#### Self-knowledge

Some characters learn who they are through conflict. Others refuse that knowledge. Both outcomes are analytically rich.

This is where AP prompts often become indirect. A prompt may ask about indecision, rebellion, memory, secrecy, or lack. Beneath each of those is usually a conflict.

- **Indecision** often means internal conflict between competing values
- **Rebellion** often means external conflict with authority or society
- **Memory** often means conflict between past experience and present identity
- **Secret** often means conflict between self-protection and disclosure
- **Unfulfilled desire** often means conflict between “what is” and “what could be”

So if you see a prompt that does not use the word conflict, you should still look for the struggle underneath it.

A classic AP move is to analyse a character who is “unhappily trapped in what is” and unable to reach “what could be.” That is conflict in a disguised form. The character’s dissatisfaction is not enough by itself. What matters is what forces keep the character trapped and how that plight contributes to the work’s whole meaning.

> **Key Term: theme**
> A central idea or insight that a literary work explores through its characters, conflicts, and structure.

To move from character conflict to theme, avoid vague language like “this shows the human condition.” Be specific. Ask what the work suggests about one issue. For example:

- social systems can make sincere relationships difficult
- desire without self-knowledge can become destructive
- loyalty may require painful moral compromise
- the past can remain active long after events end
- fear of judgment can trap people in secrecy

Those are arguable, work-specific claims. They are much stronger than broad statements like “conflict is part of life.”

### Writing about conflict in FRQ 3

AP FRQ 3 is a **literary argument**. That means your essay must present an interpretation, support it with specific evidence, and explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.

> **Key Term: literary argument**
> An essay that makes a defensible interpretation about a literary work and supports it with evidence and commentary.

The 6-point rubric rewards three things:

- **Thesis**: a defensible interpretation
- **Evidence and Commentary**: specific support plus explanation
- **Sophistication**: developed complexity, tension, or broader insight

When conflict is central to your essay, your thesis should do more than identify the struggle. Weak thesis: “The novel shows internal and external conflict.” Stronger thesis: “By placing the protagonist between family loyalty and moral conviction, the novel turns conflict into a test of identity, showing that self-knowledge comes only through painful resistance.”

Notice the difference. The second thesis already points toward meaning.

A good conflict paragraph often follows this structure:

1. State the claim about what the conflict is doing
2. Name a key event or sequence
3. Explain how the event intensifies or redirects the struggle
4. Analyse what this reveals about character
5. Link that revelation to the work as a whole

Here is a simple model:

- Claim: The character’s conflict with authority becomes a conflict with the self
- Evidence: At first, the character openly resists the rule; later, the character begins to doubt the cost of resistance
- Commentary: This shift matters because the external battle exposes an internal fear of isolation
- Work as a whole: The narrative therefore suggests that oppression works not only through force but through the pressure it exerts on identity and conscience

This is commentary. It does not stop at naming events.

Students lose points when they:

- summarize plot without analysis
- name literary features without explaining function
- make claims about theme with no textual path leading there
- treat conflict as a topic instead of as evidence for an argument

Sophistication often comes from tension. Maybe the protagonist is admirable but also self-destructive. Maybe the antagonist is cruel but not wholly wrong. Maybe the conflict produces growth and damage at the same time. Maybe the work refuses easy resolution. Those tensions are strong material.

> **Test Tip:** For sophistication, try using a sentence beginning with “Yet” or “At the same time.” This can help you discuss competing interpretations or tensions without losing your main argument.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Conflict is a struggle or tension that shapes plot, character, and meaning
- Internal conflict involves struggles within a character’s mind, values, or desires
- External conflict involves struggles against another character, society, authority, nature, or fate
- Strong literary analysis often shows how internal and external conflict interact
- In longer fiction and drama, conflict develops across a sequence of events through cause and effect
- Turning points matter because they shift, intensify, or redirect a conflict
- Plot analysis should explain what events do, not just list what happens
- Conflict reveals motive, limitation, change, and self-knowledge in characters
- AP prompts may test conflict indirectly through indecision, secrecy, rebellion, memory, or unfulfilled desire
- FRQ 3 essays need a defensible interpretation, specific evidence, and commentary linking conflict to the work as a whole
- Stronger essays move from local struggle to larger theme or meaning
- Sophistication often comes from analysing tensions, competing obligations, or mixed outcomes

## Key Terms and Concepts

- conflict
- internal conflict
- external conflict
- protagonist
- antagonist
- plot
- turning point
- theme
- literary argument


Longer Fiction or Drama I - Conflict in extended narratives