Post 11:The external conflict (Ashley)

External conflict of the protagonist: an external conflict is a conflict outside a characters control.

Passages: Pg 38-39

"You Don't scare me" I said mostly under my breathe. He'd already turned to leave but now he whirled back. "what did you say?"
" You don't scare me," I repeated louder this time. A brazen feeling had broke loose in me, a daring something that had been locked up in my chest.
He stepped toward me, raising the back of his hand like he might bring it down across my face. " You better watch your mouth."
" Go ahead, try and hit me!" I yelled.
when he swung, I turned my face. It was a clean miss. I ran for the bed and scrabbled on to the middle of it, breathing hard. " My mother will never let you touch me again!" I shouted.
"Your mother?" His face was bright red. " You think that goddamn woman ever gave a shit about you?"
" My mother loved me!" I cried
He threw back his head and let out a forced, bitter laugh.
It's--- it's not funny," I said. He lunged toward the bed then pressing his fists into the mattress, bringing his face so close I could see the tiny holes where his whiskers. I slid backward toward the pillows, shoving my back into the headboard."not funny?" he yelled. "not funny? why, it's the funniest goddamn thing I ever heard; you thinking your mother is your guardian angel." He laughed again. " The women could have cared less about you.""That's not true," I said. "It's not.""And how would you know?" he said still leaning toward me.A leftover smile pulled the corners of his mouth."I hate you!" I screamed That stopped his smiling instantly. He stiffened. " why, you little bitch," he said. The color faded from his lips.Suddenly i felt ice cold, as if something dangerous had slipped into the room. I looked toward the window and felt a tremor slide along my spine."You listen to me," he said, his voice deadly calm. "The truth is your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she'd come back to get her things that's all. You can hate me all you want, but shes the one who left you."

Explanation: This passage really shows the external conflict of the protagonist because there is nothing that lily can do to erase what her dad told her from her memory. There is nothing she can do to stop it and it is out of her control. Even though she wants to believe that it is not true, she will never know for sure and now that she ran away, there is nothing she can do about it. The authors purpose of the passage was to show how helpless Lily is listening to this and how much it will affect her throughout the book. I know that this is the authors purpose because reading on I realized how much this one passage had such an affect on the protagonist and how she can do nothing about that affect.