Skip to main content

What are two quotes from Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick that reveal conflict?

1. "Like, hey, who's the midget? And, there goes Mad Max; and, excuse me while I barf; and, look what escaped from the freak show; and, oh my gawd that's disgusting."


This is what runs through Max's mind on the first day of school, in Chapter 12, when he and his new best friend Kevin ("Freak") are roaming the halls together, Freak riding on Max's shoulders. He's recounting all the nasty things that the other kids are saying (or perhaps only thinking) when they see the oversized Max and the shockingly small Kevin walking together in that way. The conflict is on display in the quote above, revealing how other people keep on judging both friends based on their appearance: Max, based on his hulking size and his resemblance to his father the felon, and Kevin, based on his small size and his leg brace. Their peers reject Max and Kevin as "disgusting" and a "freak show," worthy of "barf" rather than acceptance. This is a key conflict that both Max and Freak will have to deal with throughout the story.


If you needed to label it as a certain category, you could call this conflict between the friends and their peer group as "Man vs. Man."


2. "I do worry about it, though, because if she's crying, I must have hit her and I don't remember it. Which, if you think about it, is really scary. Who knows what I might do and then not remember it?" 


This is what Max is thinking in Chapter 13, when his school principal and nurse are trying to calm him down after he learns that his father might be getting out of prison and wants to get in touch with Max. The conflict is internal here: Max worries that he'll be a criminal, that he'll be violent, like his father. And Max worries that he won't have the mental capacity to prevent himself from hurting other people or even to remember having done it. Max has to come to an understanding of himself as an individual, separate from his father; he has to learn to trust himself and believe in his own intelligence.


Again, if you require a way to categorize this conflict between the strong and weak sides of Max, you can call it "Man vs. Himself" or "Man vs. Self."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more