Internal And External Conflict In Stephen Crane's Psycho

Psycho is told as a “character vs character” and “character vs self” story with both internal and external conflicts. How it is told is actually really interesting. The story is split into two parts and the protagonist changes during the story from Marion to Norman.

The story starts with a real estate secretary named Marion Crane, who wants to marry her boyfriend Sam, but he could not afford it because of his debt. So her external conflict is that she wants to marry him, but he won't until they can afford it. After a client drops off forty thousand dollars, she decides to steal it so that Sam can pay off his debts. As she leaves to drive to see Sam, the internal conflict she begins to have with herself would be to return the money or save