1. "Like, hey, who's the midget? And, there goes Mad Max; and, excuse me while I barf; and, look what escaped from the freak show; and, oh my gawd that's disgusting."
This is what runs through Max's mind on the first day of school, in Chapter 12, when he and his new best friend Kevin ("Freak") are roaming the halls together, Freak riding on Max's shoulders. He's recounting all the nasty things that the...
1. "Like, hey, who's the midget? And, there goes Mad Max; and, excuse me while I barf; and, look what escaped from the freak show; and, oh my gawd that's disgusting."
This is what runs through Max's mind on the first day of school, in Chapter 12, when he and his new best friend Kevin ("Freak") are roaming the halls together, Freak riding on Max's shoulders. He's recounting all the nasty things that the other kids are saying (or perhaps only thinking) when they see the oversized Max and the shockingly small Kevin walking together in that way. The conflict is on display in the quote above, revealing how other people keep on judging both friends based on their appearance: Max, based on his hulking size and his resemblance to his father the felon, and Kevin, based on his small size and his leg brace. Their peers reject Max and Kevin as "disgusting" and a "freak show," worthy of "barf" rather than acceptance. This is a key conflict that both Max and Freak will have to deal with throughout the story.
If you needed to label it as a certain category, you could call this conflict between the friends and their peer group as "Man vs. Man."
2. "I do worry about it, though, because if she's crying, I must have hit her and I don't remember it. Which, if you think about it, is really scary. Who knows what I might do and then not remember it?"
This is what Max is thinking in Chapter 13, when his school principal and nurse are trying to calm him down after he learns that his father might be getting out of prison and wants to get in touch with Max. The conflict is internal here: Max worries that he'll be a criminal, that he'll be violent, like his father. And Max worries that he won't have the mental capacity to prevent himself from hurting other people or even to remember having done it. Max has to come to an understanding of himself as an individual, separate from his father; he has to learn to trust himself and believe in his own intelligence.
Again, if you require a way to categorize this conflict between the strong and weak sides of Max, you can call it "Man vs. Himself" or "Man vs. Self."
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