You have asked more than one question so I have had to
edit it down to one question. Hopefully with the help of the information about the
characters you can answer your other question about
conflict.
Well, in this story then, the protagonist is
clearly the narrator, who is a rather strange protagonist. As he is an unreliable
narrator we as the readers are unsure of how much to believe his words and what he says.
He repeatedly states that he is sane, but we have deep suspicions that in fact he may
not be because of his mannerisms, reasoning and speech. Note how he introduces himself
in the first paragraph:
True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous
I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I
heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then,
am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole
story.
The juxtaposition of
the narrator's insistence that he "heard all things" in heaven and earth and many in
hell with his insistence that he is sane, clearly makes us suspect
otherwise.
The antagonist is the "Old Man" who the narrator
clearly knows well. The narrator says "I loved the old man." The only dislike he has is
of the cloudy film that covers one of the old man's eye. According to the narrator, he
is apparently rich. Apart from this we are told little of him accept of his horror as he
realises that he is going to be killed.
Hope these brief
character sketches help you work out the conflict and how it is resolved! Poe really is
a master of the short gothic story.
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