(Continued from “Highly Conflicted Characters.”)

Tall, dark, and handsome isn’t what draws readers to Mr. Darcy. It’s the battle. Vice vs. virtue. Pride vs. love.

His pride we spot in an instant, the force of his love revealed by shades.

For friend, implacable. And hand-in-hand with pride.

Break Bingley up with Jane to save his friend from heartbreak, he thinks, and it’ll also keep his world from stooping, it’ll keep Bingley in the most refined, high-flying circles.

For sister, love like a dragon, but kind. And gentle to pride.

Save her from Wickham’s wicked schemes. Save the family name.

 But Elizabeth stirs up a storm, brings a battle.

Deep-seated pride vs. unrelenting love.

A love that, he admits, defies his will, his reason, and even his character. Pride does not yield easily.

But when it does…

His is a love not in words only, but with actions and in truth—serving his woman by saving her sister. Track down Wickham, expose the lies, set things right. Pride doesn’t dirty his waistcoat on seedy London streets. Pride doesn’t pay a manipulator when he could walk away unscathed. But love does. Because if he doesn’t, the woman won’t go unscathed.

You know why the story ends when it does?

It’s because there is no more pride in Darcy, no more prejudice in Elizabeth. Pride vs. love. The battle is over.

The story isn’t over because they’re married and now happily ever after. They’re married because the battle is over, and in the Story, that’s what happens next. In real life, there are new hills to climb. Our struggles are part of a larger Story, and it’s not over. The battle has been won, but it’s still raging. And when it’s over, guess what happens? Happily ever after. A child could tell you that. And so it is.

Jean Valjean. Full of light, with a dark past. Wrestling with two ideals.

Give himself up to the law or keep his promise to a dying woman?

Guilty and lionhearted. Justice vs. mercy. He chooses mercy.

And he represents it in the book. Javert is on the side of justice. They battle it out. Mercy wins. At its core, Les Miserables was a plea for its readers to have mercy on the poor, to rescue them from a penal system too heavy for them to bear.

Margaret Hale. Miss “do the right thing.” Honest, loyal, brave, full of compassion. But what happens when telling the truth will put her falsely accused brother in harm’s way?

The police inspector is staring at her. There’s no time for a protracted inner struggle. She speaks.

Loyalty wins. She tells a lie to save a life.

Inner conflict begins rising after the fact.

She discovers her lie will be known. The one who knows will keep it quiet, that much is certain. Also certain, she’ll never be the same in his eyes.

Margaret is given another chance. She could clear her name…and risk sending her brother to his death.

Knowing what it will cost her, she lies again.

Afterwards, she wrestles daily with her decision.

The one who knows gives her a chance for redemption.

“The secret is another person’s.” She takes the bullet to her good name, though it wounds her to the core.

She knows her priorities. Life comes before her appearance. Even when preserving that life ruins her reputation in the eyes of the one person whose good opinion she values most.

Not always honest. But undoubtedly brave.

And then there’s the kid with no name.

I don’t know if I’d call his an inner conflict. But there are things that don’t seem to belong together.

He’s one of the most interesting characters I’ve met.

I met him in a book called Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli. I picked up the audiobook for one dollar. The library was getting rid of it. Presumably because it’s a children’s book about a Polish Gypsy boy who wants to be a Nazi. (I assume some parents complained.) And, as it happens, the boy’s best friends are Jews. So obviously, there’s going to be some kind of inner struggle, sooner or later. Even if it comes as one decisive blow.

“This is crazy,” I thought when I read the back cover. It got crazier.

The kid knows nothing. No one taught him to fear. No one taught him to hate. No one taught him who he is. When the book opens, he only knows one thing—how to survive. Seriously, he doesn’t even know his own name.

We meet a puzzle.

Innocent, naïve, and a lawbreaker, a thief.

Who is he really? What are we to make of him?

He sees the marching and wants to be a Nazi.

Then, “What’s an angel?” he asks.

Wow.

This book is not for the faint of heart. But I don’t think you are, if you read this far.