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Conflict in The Interior Castle by Jean Stafford Essay

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Conflict in The Interior Castle by Jean Stafford The Interior Castle by Jean Stafford is a very disturbing but thought-provoking story of a woman who creates a separate world within her head after being severely injured in a car accident. The conflict of the story is Pansy’s attempted escape from pain. Throughout the story she develops an incredibly intricate world within her own mind. She attempts to run from the pain she feels by retreating into this world in which she has made for herself.

After arriving at the hospital with severe facial and cranial injuries due to a car accident, Pansy Vanneman began to lock herself away within her head in silent, unspoken hopes of escaping the terrible pain that surged throughout her body. She …show more content…

Oliver. Into the fall garden she strolled, wearing a very out-of-place pink hat. Her love ignored her and took another love interest right before her eyes. The color pink, although seemingly beautiful and powerful to her brain, was sometimes very hurtful to Pansy. It was times like these that her brain failed her and she could not escape from her emotional pain.

During Pansy’s accident, she had sustained severe facial injuries, mainly to the structure of her nose. Once again to escape the pain, Pansy would draw back into her own perfect mind so as not to deal with the horrific pain that her body was putting her through. The only person that threatened to take this security away from her was one Doctor Nicholas. Dr. Nicholas was extremely intrigued with Pansy, not only because of her fantastic injuries to her face and skull, but also because of her reaction to it all. She showed no emotions whatsoever. No pain, happiness, sadness, nothing at all. He believed he was witnessing shock at a level he had never before seen. Pansy, however, was as fascinated by him as he was of her. She wondered to herself if he had the creativity and “imagination” it would take to reconstruct her nose. She believed that nothing he could accomplish on the surface would come close to comparing with her magnificent mind.

After spending some time in the hospital, Dr. Nicholas decided to finally operate on Pansy’s nose.

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