On the Sidewalk
Bleeding.
Evan Hunter.
What are the four kinds of literary
conflict?
Man vs. Nature: Struggle with a force of nature.
Man vs. Society: Struggle with the laws or beliefs of
a group.
Man vs. Self: Struggle deciding what to think or do.
There is often a moral dilemma, or a question of
conscience.
Man vs. Man: Struggle with another character.
Conflict in the setting.
Our view of New York.
Andy’s view of New York. “They would
move to a clean project in the Bronx.”
Conflict in ‘On the Sidewalk
Bleeding.’
Man v man:
• Andy was stabbed by another person and left to die in an alleyway.
• He [Andy] had been stabbed ten minutes ago. The knife had entered just below
his rib cage and had been drawn across his body violently, tearing a wide gap in his
flesh.”
• Gang conflict (Royals v Guardians).
“That was a fierce rumble. They got me good that time”
Consequences for Andy: Freddie and Angela don’t help him because they don’t want
to “get mixed up in this” when they see Andy’s jacket.
Man v nature:
Nature and the environment are against Andy. There are constant references to the
rain and the dark. “the rain was beating a steady relentless tattoo on the cans” and
“the cold ran washing his hot body.”
Consequences for Andy:
Perhaps if it had been day, and more people were around, Andy could have survived.
But instead he is dying in a dark, isolated alleyway that has already been the setting
for gang conflict.
Conflict.
• Man v. himself.
This is the most important type of conflict.
• At first, Andy is in denial “I can’t be dying,” but he is kidding himself. He
realizes that he’s dying when he can’t communicate with Angela and
Freddie.
• Andy wonders if he has made the right decisions in his young life by being
part of the royals. “And he wondered suddenly if the Guardians who had
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ambushed him and knifed him had ever once realized he was Andy.”
There is a conflict over whether to keep his gang identity with the Royals
or whether or not to be himself, Andy.
In the Royals, he has a title and a jacket, but he is just another faceless gang
member.
Consequences: Andy asks himself a series of rhetorical questions “Had they
known that he was Andy or had they simply known that he was Royal wearing
a purple silk jacket? Had they stabbed him, Andy, or had they only stabbed the
jacket and the title and what good was the title if you were dying?”.
He comes to the conclusion “I’m Andy, he screamed wordlessly, I’m Andy.”
Literary devices.
• Rhetorical questions: used to show Andy’s inner conflict with
himself, and his search for identity.
• Oxymoron (when contradictory terms are combined
together: e.g ‘screamed wordlessly’: to show the gap between
what Andy wants and what he has/his inner identity and how
others see him. ‘I’m Andy, he screamed wordlessly. I’m Andy.”
Literary devices.
• Symbolism (a symbol is a physical object that stands in for an
IDEA. They provide meaning beyond what is actually
described.)
• Personification (giving non human things human qualities):
• Simile.
Literary devices.
• Symbolism: The jacket- stands for the conflicts between gangs
(man and man), the conflict between Andy and himself in
terms of his identity, the prejudice of Andy by others.
The knife that cuts Andy could also be a symbol for the gang
conflict in the story.
The rain is a symbol of the man v nature conflict.
• Personification (giving non human things human qualities):
The rain ‘was beating’ the rain ‘chilled him’ the rain ‘drilling his
jacket.’
• ‘a world that was rushing past at the end of the alley.’
• Simile. The old lady and her umbrella. She ‘carried it like a
queen’
Questions on Conflict.
1. What effect does Andy’s jacket have on the people who find
him in the alleyway?
2. What role does the jacket play in the short story, and what
name could we give to the jacket?
Theme
• Labels can define you. Your true identity can be concealed
under the label you choose to wear.