When I first thought of what the conflict was in this novel, I thought the war. Of course it would be the war! There are many other events that go on in the novel, but the main conflict of course is the war. This conflict is external because it is between two outside forces. The protagonist is the whole town that is invaded, and the antagonist are the invaders who try and control the town. For a long time, it seemed that the conflict was very boring and that there was not much going on with the war, more with the people it involved. That is when I discovered all of the smaller conflicts that reside in the novel.
The war is of course the main conflict. It was between the townspeople and the invaders. However, this war did not have a great amount of fighting. The townspeople were just cold and mean to the soldiers. They did not fight back until the end of the novel. This conflict was the biggest in the novel but it seemed to linger through the pages like it was unimportant. It was not fully resolved in this novel because the ending was so abrupt and it just foreshadowed what was to happen. Therefore, this conflict was different than any I had seen. It was overshadowed by other events happening. This was definetly a strange conflict.
A smaller conflict that I discovered was the internal conflict that Tonder faced. He was wearing thin with his nerves and he was beginning to think of doing foolish things. He admitted to his fellow soldiers that he was growing more lonely and homesick day by day. He was advised not to go after any women, no matter how lonely he was. He was advised not to do other things as well, but he went ahead and went to go meet a women. He lost the internal conflict with himself because he acted on his impulses rather than thinking them through. His weakness was his downfall and he ended up getting murdered by the women he wanted to be with.
Steinbeck, John. The Moon Is Down. New York: Penguin Classics, 1942. Print.
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