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Conflict In Seventh Grade And The Melting Pot By Gary Soto And Anna Quindlen

Decent Essays

As in all stories and articles of literature, the short stories “Seventh Grade” and “The Melting Pot”, written by Gary Soto and Anna Quindlen have a conflict. A conflict is a problem between anything or anyone. There are multiple types of conflicts. In these stories particularly, there are internal and external conflicts. An internal conflict in presented in “Seventh Grade”. An internal conflict is a problem between a person and him/herself. An external conflict is a conflict between someone and an outside force. This aspect is shown in “The Melting Pot” several times. All stories have a conflict, but do these conflicts all have winners?

In the short story, “Seventh Grade”, the conflict is internal. Victor is facing himself on how to impress a girl in his grade, Teresa. At first, Victor had scowled at a few girls to see if the tactic that his friend taught him would work. He found that the girls looked at him and smiled. He also tried to speak French and bump into her. Specifically, in this situation, I believe that there is no winner in one way, but a winner in another way. Victor’s conflict in his own mind was resolved when he did impress her by pretending he knew how to speak French, but, on the contrary, Victor will constantly try to impress Teresa more. He would try to up himself every time and never really be satisfied. Victor does not have a winner or loser in this conflict. In the long term, there is no winner. In the present, Victor won this

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