The Road Conflict Essay

As children, we are taught not to fight, to share, and essentially to avoid all conflict. These lessons are taught as an attempt to prevent wrongdoing in future generations. Despite all of these efforts, conflict persists. Conflict has many origins. These origins can be seen easily in literature. For example, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, describes an extreme situation of survival and realistically portrays the reaction of people in that situation. The novel provides insight into the way that conflict originates from a person’s innate survival instincts as well as differing moral beliefs. Moreover, the poems Everything is Plundered by Anna Akhmatova and Night in Sine by Leopold Senghor are both centered around conflicts that have occurred in
The use of slaves by this group of people makes the man and the boy perceive them as “bad guys”. There is a growing divide between people perceived as “good guys” and “bad guys” based on the differing morals of individuals. Just as moral beliefs cause conflict, so too do differing political beliefs. In the poem Everything is Plundered by Anna Akhmatova, conflict originates from a group of people pressing their political views on the people around them. The subject of the poem is the detrimental effects of the Russian revolution and the rise of communism. At this time in history, many radical communists believed that by pushing their political ideologies on the citizens of Russia, they could make everyone equal. They did not worry about using violent tactics to get their way because their belief was that peace would follow once communism made everyone equal. The first line of the poem expresses this describing how “Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold” (Line 1, Akhmatova). Anna Akhmatova’s description of everything as “betrayed” refers to the change in political ideologies and how the original views of the country were betrayed by communists seeking power and influence. The idea that everything is “plundered” refers to the idea that the entire country was devastated as Communists tried to press their views on the population. This theme of destruction and conflict
This leads to an immense amount of greed and creates conflict between individuals. A prime example of this is in Everything is Plundered. The poem describes how communists were so passionate about creating an equal society that they felt like they had the right to harm people that opposed them. This developed into a greed for power and for influence over the population. Anna Akhmatova experienced this greed first hand as her family fell victim to communist violence. She expresses this conflict in her poem as she says “Death’s great black wing scrapes the air,”(Akhmatova). She is referring to the death toll of the conflict and how over 20 million people were killed. The death toll is an indication of the greed of the communists for power over the region and their neglect for the needs of the greater society. Similar greed can be seen in the imperialism of Africa. This greed is highlighted in the poem Night in Sine by Leopold Senghor. Leopold writes about the greed of France as they try to colonize Africa in order to gain land, influence, and natural resources. France’s greed for natural resources meant the neglect of the wellbeing of Africans. Conflict arose as Africans felt their culture and traditional way of life being lost. This loss of culture can be seen as Leopold tells his fellow Africans to “Let the Ancestors/Speak around us as parents do when the children