are the examples of stories with multiple conflicts (say internal vs external) but the conflicts instead of paralleling each other, are contrasting?
In Art of the Short Story on plot, they talk about examples where one might have a conflict that manifests itself both internally and externally (psychologically and physically)
- E.g. Ivan's physical illness along with his internal struggles, uncertainties, dissatisfaction in The Death of Ivan Ilyich. (talk inevitable yet surprising)
Example of what I have in mind:
- Internal conflict: over the fact that the protagonist has chosen to do a PhD, foregoing a large salary in industry. But now, he is struggling with feelings of regret amidst having to deal with financial uncertainty.
- External conflict: he's doing research for purely academic/curiosity driven purposes, but capitalist forces have led to his work being used for money making (as well as both ethically murky and perhaps even existentially threatening) purposes. So, he has to fight to try and wrestle his work back; purify of it of capitalist intent.
- The point being that in the internal conflict, he's made a choice against money but is now struggling with, maybe money is important. While in the external conflict, the struggle is in the opposite direction: the world has chosen money, and the struggle is with trying to pull back from it.