Finding Conflict In a story by Jules Vernes

INTRODUCTION

Many stories have been made by The great writers. People have noticed every different story from every author. I already prepared one story to discuss, In The Year 2889 by Jules Verne. In the year 2889 is an 1889 short story published under the name of Jules Verne, but now believed to be mainly the work of his son Michel Verne, based on his father’s ideas. Jules Verne was a French novelist; and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction. In 1885, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of the New York Herald (the same man who sent Stanley to Africa to find Livingstone) asked Jules Verne to write a short story about life in United States a thousand years hence.

Ironically, the resulting tale was not printed until1889—and not in the New York Herald. It is unusual work in every way. Verne wrote few short stories, and no others first published in English. In contrast to his conservative, plodding SF novels, “In The Year2889” dashes wildly from one fanciful extrapolation to another. Experts believe Jules’ son Michel may have authored part of the story. Many predictions for the year 2889 come true. Verne’s dystopian concept of one man brought to vast power and wealth through widely distributed intellectual property brings to mind names like Samuel Newhouse and Bill Gates. There are also glimmerings of later science fiction themes, including suspended animation and turning the moon around a la Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood End (1953). Of course Verne also made mistakes, and some of his prediction simply have no come to pass. But give them time: there are nearly nine centuries left before the year 2889.

But for now I would like to discuss some conflicts in Jules Vernes’ In The Year 2889. On this Novel that we would like to discuss later, there is a lot of plot that can be analyse, such as Plot; plot is series of episodes in narrative carried out by the character. We easily found plot the first time we read this story. The beginning of this story is the narrator talk about the past. Let me quote something from the beginning “Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this twenty-ninth century live continually in fairyland. Surfeited as they are with marvels, they are indifferent in presence of each new marvels” the story begin with narrator, there is no her or him; it is the Narrator; it is a plot. Plot itself has a concept          : Rising Action, Conflict, Climax, Falling Action and Resolution. But we only focused on the conflict of this story. Conflict is a clash of ideas, actions, desires or wills of the main character. In this story it is not that hard to find conflict. Conflicts itself got three types; Man against Man, Man against Environment, and Man against Himself.

CONTENT

What is conlflict? Conflict is a clash of ideas, actions, desires or wills of the main character. The idea of this story it is found by its conflict. How the main character, which his name is Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith found himself in the modern era of twenty-ninth century. How he handle himself from that era. How he handle the environment of that era. How he struggle with himself In this era and How he sometimes fought with his wife and other men such as Russian or Chinese. We will discuss about that soon.

Conflict has three types: Man Against Man, Man against Environment, and Man Against Himself. In this short story, I found some conflicts Man against Man, when Mr. Smith and Russian about something and Mr. Smith blame Chinese somehow. As we all can see, this is Mr. Smith against this man Russian Man. Let me show you how it goes.

“how is it,” he asked, turning to the Russian Ambassador, “that you Russians are not content with your vast empire, the most extensive in the world, stretching from the banks of the Rhine to the Celestial Mountains and The Kara-Korum, whose shores are washed by the Frozen Ocean, the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and The Indian Ocean? Then, what is the use of threats? Is war possible in view of modern inventions-asphyxiating shells capable of being projected a distance of 60 miles, an electric spark of 90 miles, that can at one stroke annihilate a battalion; to say nothing of the plague, the cholera, the yellow fever, that the belligerents might spread among their antagonists mutually, and which would in a few days destroy the greatest armies? In this plot, we can see that Mr.Smith was being sarcastic and start to argue by telling all Russians mistakes or not

“True,” answered the Russian; “but can we do all that we wish? As for us Russians  pressed on our eastern frontier by the Chinese, we must at any cost put forth our strength for an effort toward the west” in this statement, accept his argue and blame Chinese somehow, by doing that, Russians start a conflict with Mr. Smith; Man Against Man.

If it is the example of Man against Man, I want to show you the example from this story of Man against Environment. This conflict itself for me is simply by doing a daily activity and have a problem within that. This part of the story tell us how an environment affect out daily basic.

“A campaign against the annexation that has been an accomplished fact for 150 years!” rxclaimed Mr. Smith “how cam your people supposed that I would do anything so unpatriotic?”  just like Man Against Man, this environment force Mr.Smith to acted like that. He didn’t mean that. The environment made him to. That’s him, against his own environment. Here is some words that narrator-somehow- explain about this conflict.

“for Mr.Smith, being aboveall a practical man; instead of the endless suites of apartements oh the olden time, one room fitted with ingenious mechanical contrivances is enough. Here he sleeps, takes his meals, in short, lives.”

The third and the last types of conflict is Man Against Himself. For me, myself, it is the most important types than the first nor the second ones. This types teach us to be strong, to handle our own feeling; because sometimes, heart and mind cannot be together. Here is some the examples that I took from the story where Mr. Smith begin to had this tyoe of conflict.

“he seat himself. in the mirror of the phonotelephore is seen the same chamber at Paris which appeared in it this morning. A table furnished forth is likewise in readiness here, for notwithstanding the difference of hours, Mr. Smith and his wife have arranged to take their meals simultaneously” maybe this one is not quite good for some example. But for ones who look more closely, that paragraph explain a lot that Mr. Smith has been trhough a lot of rough time. This one maybe best example for this type of conflict:

“left to himself, feeling tired, he lay down on an extension chair. Then, touching a knob, he established communication with the Centra Concert Hall, whence our greatest maestros send out to subscribes to their delightful successions” he felt tired, he need a break. He had been fought with the same man over and over again; himself. this type, taugh us that no matter how smart your brain works, it does not always match with your heart, right?

CONCLUSION

Above all, you can learn what it feels like what is taste like tp have a conflict. Conflict is not that you have fight with other person. You know by now (if you read all of them) that even environment can affect you to have conflict. And can even fight with yourself. This Jules’ IN THE YEAR 2889 taugh me that conflict is everywhere. It is around us and it is never stop to haunting and testing us. 

DINDA ALMASELLA RUSTAM (63715016)