Whether it is in school, work, or the society, conflict is inevitable, resulting from either a clash of personality, difference of interests, or perhaps even an unpropitious weather, ruining the nuptial bliss. Conflicts can be categorized in two main groups: internal and external conflict. George’s Secret Key to the Universe, a Science fiction written by the celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, focuses mainly on external conflict, specifically focusing on person vs. person conflict of the external conflicts.
This type of conflict, person vs. person, resolves around two side—George’s and Reeper’s side. On George’s side are George, the protagonist and a student keen to learn about the universe, and Eric, a physicist who owns Cosmos, the most powerful computer in the entire world, Susan, Eric’s wife, and Annie, Eric and Susan’s daughter; On Reeper’s side are Reeper, George’s teacher and the antagonist, and the school bullies, comprised of Ringo, Zit, Tank, and Whippet. Two sides have a direct conflict of interest. Negotiation and compromise is thus impossible. The goals of the George’s side were unclear at the beginning. But no matter what it was, it was certainly against Reeper’s goal as they vowed to do good only using Science; however, as the story progressed, they faced a dilemma: “So, the question we now have to answer is: Should we concentrate on finding ways to improve life on Earth and face its problems, or should we try to find another planet for humanity to inhabit?” (Hawking 190) Eric put forth the question for discussion and voting. At last, they concluded that they should do both: find another planet and improve conditions and solve problems on Earth. While George’s side wants to find another planet humans can live on and protect Earth while they are doing so, Reeper’s side wants to find a new planet and bring only a kind of new species that would listen to Reeper only: shown by what Reeper said, “Look what they’ve done so far to this beautiful planet. I’m going to start again somewhere else, with a new life form. Those silly little boys think I’ll be taking them with me. But I won’t! Ha-ha-ha-ha! I’ll leave them here to die, like the rest of the human race.” (245) The conflict of interest is further aggravated as Eric and Reeper had past unpleasant dealing with one another: As Susan said,“I always told Eric that he shouldn’t trust Graham(Reeper). But he wouldn’t listen. Eric always thought the best of people. Until… Until something terrible happened. Something that none of us could forget.”(261) Their conflicts in the past and their current conflicts of interest makes them enemies. This is unavoidable. They are Inevitably enemies. Inevitably enemies.
Of course, as conflict is destined to happen in everyone’s life in some point, I have experienced it as well. Unlike George, the person vs. person conflict I experienced is quite physical… In second grade, the boy sitting in front of me punched me in the eye, because he wanted to borrow my eraser and I didn’t want to let him borrow it. I wasn’t happy with his actions and punched him back, starting a big fight. However, like George, the cause of the fight is because we had a conflict of interest: I didn’t want to give the eraser to him but he wanted to borrow my eraser.
The reason I chose infographic to express my ideas is because I wanted to let the reader know about the plot of the story and why this conflict between George and Reeper is essential to the development of the plotline; however, I did not want to bore the reader with the multimedia I choose. Since infographics have both picture and words, it represents the best sides of both worlds: the ability to dissect a complex subject and the ability to sustain the attention of the reader while doing so. It keeps people’s interest by lending a storytelling and visual element to what can be a boring summary of a plotline and the conflict between characters. And this is why I chose an infographic for my multimedia.
Image Source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Person_icon_BLACK-01.svg
http://nickiminaj.wikia.com/wiki/File:Vs.png
