The story “Top Man” by James Ullman is a great story that includes all three, conflicts, man vs. man, man vs. himself, and man vs. power greater than himself. Each of these conflicts have to do with conflicts that happen in the everyday world.
The first conflict is man vs. man has to do with the two main characters Osborne and Nace have the most conflict in the story because they have different opinions on how things should be done. Osborne is one year out of college and a very experienced climber also Osborne likes to get things done very fast , Nace is in his forties and very slow and cautious, in his last attempt to climb K3 his friend died on the mountain by falling 10,000 feet to his death. The ambition of Osborne to get things done and Nace’s slow paced movements causes problems for them and their team.
Another conflict is man vs. power greater than himself. In This case the power is nature against the team. The nature on K3 changes constantly because the team will never know if it is going to be sunny or pour 12 feet of snow on them.
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himself. Nace is the man who had the most inner struggle with himself throughout the book. His friend John Furness slipped and fell 10,000 feet to his death. This gave Nace more ambition to defeat K3 and bury his axe into the mountain top, but on one of the last nights Nace went up by himself and tried to get to the top which lead him to get stuck on a ledge, but Osborne and the narrator get their in time to try and save him. Nace's sudden clumsiness leads him to getting on the ledge and also losing his footing while Osborne tries to save Nace. Osborne climbs to the top and plants Nace’s axe on the top but tells no one else that he conquered the mountain. The next summer a different group goes up K3 and defeats the mountain but while they thought it was going to be a great moment of victory they found Nace’s axe on the mountain, and being good sports told the world the true conqueror of