how does the story's introduction set ip the various conflicts that follow?

As we can see in the introduction, we have a selfish woman given to placing her own needs above all else. She loves herself above all others anthat she d thinks little of her children..... until she feels guilty that she doesn't. The fact the children can see and feel her lack of love is bound to make them see if they can earn it..... or aquire it by some other means.

There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she was all the more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them very much. Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: “She is such a good mother. She adores her children.” Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other’s eyes.