External Conflict Of The Midnight Zone By Lauren Groff

The quote, “He let go of the stool to whack at her, and I did a quarter spin, then fell and hit the floor with my head, and then I surly blacked out” comes from the story “The Midnight Zone” by Lauren Groff. It shows the external conflict of the story of how the main character, the mother, had to wait in the hunting camp alone with her two boys, then cracked open her skull till her husband came back home. The main theme of the story is that everyone is able of being a mother but not all can take on the role of a mom. During the story the woman kept her peace with her sons, she held all her pain in until her husband was able to arrive. The conflict contributes to the theme of the woman, and mom, staying strong for her kids while she was suffering

On the second day that the woman and her sons were alone, the lightbulb in the main room went out. It resulted in the cabin going very dark, to resolve it, the woman then brought over a stool and a new light bulb. The puppy the family owned went and jumped up at the son's face, while he was holding the stool still for his mom. When he let go of the stool his mother was standing on, to hit the dog, the mother fell, hit her head, and cracked it open. She got knocked out and passed out for a while, then woke back up to the sight of her sons staring at her. The sons then start to help their mother get cleaned up, in fear that their mother might be either severely injured or on the verge of death. The boys try to think of solutions to help their mom by offering to even walk into town to get help. As the woman was trying to sit up on her elbows to let the boys know she was okay, she vomited again immediately. As the boys continued to come to her aid, the woman finally asked them to get her room service. She eventually just tried to close up her wound by duct-taping gauze to the back of her head. Keeping her kids calm she goes on to tell a story about a girl who fell down a well and had to wait a week to get help, relating the story to herself. The boys went to sleep, while the woman tried to keep herself awake by reading ‘Alice in Wonderland’ but she ended up falling asleep herself. The next day came and it had felt like forever since her husband had been back. The boys continued to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while playing the game uno all afternoon. The older son stepped up and helped out the younger brother a lot by taking care of him. More hours passed before the family all heard a rustle outside and a car pulled up in the driveway. All waiting to see who it was, the husband finally walked through the door in fear of what he had