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What is the conflict and resolution in Anna Sewell's Black Beauty?
Quick answer:
The conflict in Black Beauty involves Beauty's struggle against cruel owners and harsh conditions, reflecting a broader horse vs. man conflict. The resolution occurs when Beauty, after enduring numerous hardships, is finally placed under the care of kind owners who promise he will never be sold. Although Beauty cannot actively resolve the conflict, his story ends with him in a safe and loving environment, free from suffering.
Black Beauty has more than one single conflict. A big part of the story is a coming of age story for Beauty, and he spends the first parts of his life living in near idyllic conditions. Despite that, Beauty and readers are frequently reminded that those conditions don't exist for all horses. This foreshadowing alerts readers to future horse vs. man conflicts. The Gordon family is forced to leave for warmer climates, and Beauty is then sold. From this point forward, the story follows Beauty's various struggles and conflicts with a series of ignorant, negligent, and/or brutal owners. The story also has a horse vs. self conflict that centers on Beauty's ability to mentally cope with his continually declining situation. What is interesting about the conflict in the story is that I don't believe that Beauty ever resolves the conflict. He is a horse after all, and he is subject...
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to the decisions of the human owners. Fortunately, Beauty ends up back in the country under the ownership of solid horse owners.
A conflict in any story is a battle between two opposing
elements; the battle is usually fought between the protagonist and the
antagonist. The protagonist in any story is the one who
overcomes the conflict and changes as a result; the antagonist
is the one who fights the protagonist, trying to keep him/her from succeeding.
The resolution of any story occurs the moment the protagonist
solves the problem that causes the conflict.
In Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, the title character is
the protagonist, while the cruel men he
encounters and the hard fates he suffers serve as the
antagonists. Unlike most protagonists, Black Beauty has no
control over the outcome of the story and no way to actually fight against his
antagonists. His story is resolved the moment Fate decides to place him once
again under the best care he has ever known.
As a colt, Beauty is warned by his mother of the evil in the
world:
[T]here are a great many kinds of men; there are good thoughtful men like our master, that any horse may be proud to serve; and there are bad, cruel men, who never ought to have a horse or dog to call their own. (Ch. 3, Pt. 1)
She further advises him to always remain good, gentle, and hard-working no
matter whom he winds up with. The conflict of Beauty's story
begins the moment he begins seeing the truth of her words for himself.
He is first put under the excellent care of Squire Gordon and his grooms, but
under this care, he begins to witness the cruelty inflicted by
other men upon other horses. As the story progresses, his conflict grows more
intense as he begins experiencing the cruelty firsthand for
himself under crueler and crueler masters, making him do harder labor.
The conflict begins to resolve when, driven to the point of
collapse, he is ordered by a veterinarian to be given rest and proper care; he
is then sold at a horse fair where he is luckily purchased by a kindly elderly
man and his grandson, who nurse him back to health. The story reaches its
resolution when he is sold one last time to some kindly ladies and winds up
back under the care of one of the best grooms he has ever
had--Joe Green:
My ladies have promised that I shall never be sold, and so I have nothing to fear; and here my story ends. My troubles are over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple-trees. (Ch. 49, Pt. 4)
Though Beauty has not had an active role in the resolution, the story is resolved nonetheless because he is finally free of his antagonists. Plus, he has grown as a result of his experiences because he is now worldly-wise about the nature of people and the suffering in the world.
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