The inner conflict of the main character in Edith Wharton's short story "The Other Two"

Reading literature may give entertainment, relaxation and excitement besides knowledge or information. It can also broad people mind and insight about how people face the reality to complete their dream, to conduct their feeling and emotions, and also to struggle for a happy life. One of the literary forms is short story. The writer is interested in studying short story because despite of its minimum words, it contain deep, meaningful story. She chooses Edith Warthon’s work,” The Other Two” because the story contains conflicts in a marriage which are very insightful. In her thesis, the writer raises three questions for her analysis. They are: (1) what inner conflicts are faced by the main character? (2) what is the reason for the emergence of the inner conflict? (3) what is the solution for the inner conflict? To support this study theoretically, she uses underlying theories related to the short story, which are mainly about the elements of short story and the theories related to conflict. Even though the studies include the theories about the elements of short story – character, plot , setting and theme, and also the types of conflict, the study is limited to find the inner conflict of the short story. In collecting and analyzing the data, she takes the following steps: first, the writer reads the short story to understand its detail; second, the writer identifies and takes notes any statements, dialog, or opinions showing the existence of the inner conflict; third, the writer groups them based on the inner conflict, the reason and the solution. The result of her analysis shows that Waythorn, the main character of the short story, has five inner conflicts in his marriage life because of his wife’s past that make him anxious with his wife faithfulness. Waythorn experiences inner conflicts because he finds that his wife’s past is not the same with the fact in which he believes. It makes him have negative opinion and doubt over his wife. After the conflict, he realizes how beautiful his wife is, not only physically but skillfully, tactfully and artfully as well. This makes him able to accept her two ex-husbands