scene as undramatic merely because it has no room for a clash of
warring wills.

There is a variant of the "conflict" theory which underlines the word
"obstacles" in the above-quoted dictum of Brunetière, and lays down the
rule: "No obstacle, no drama." Though far from being universally valid,
this form of the theory has a certain practical usefulness, and may well
be borne in mind. Many a play would have remained unwritten if the
author had asked himself, "Is there a sufficient obstacle between my two
lovers?" or, in more general terms, "between my characters and the
realization of their will?" There is nothing more futile than a play in
which we feel that there is no real obstacle to the inevitable happy
ending, and that the curtain might just as well fall in the middle of
the first act as at the end of the third. Comedies abound (though they
reach the stage only by accident) in which the obstacle between Corydon
and Phyllis, between Lord Edwin and Lady Angelina, is not even a defect
or peculiarity of character, but simply some trumpery
misunderstanding[2] which can be kept afoot only so long as every one
concerned holds his or her common sense in studious abeyance. "Pyramus
and Thisbe without the wall" may be taken as the formula for the whole
type of play. But even in plays of a much higher type, the author might
often ask himself with advantage whether he could not strengthen his
obstacle, and so accentuate the struggle which forms the matter of his
play. Though conflict may not be essential to drama, yet, when you set
forth to portray a struggle, you may as well make it as real and intense
as possible.

It seems to me that in the late William Vaughn Moody's drama, _The Great
Divide_, the body of the play, after the stirring first act, is weakened
by our sense that the happy ending is only being postponed by a violent