Everyday Canvas

Inner Conflict Examples

Prompt: What are the examples of inner conflict in a main character that you can come up with? List them.

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Inner conflict has to do with some kind of a weakness and internal obstacles characters create for themselves as a reaction to events and impressions from their environment. This is either ethical or emotional. Usually such a conflict has to do with the character’s being torn between two incompatible things or wishes, as Hamlet says, “To be or not to be.”

The choice or rather the inability to choose usually between two opposites--such as life or death or good and evil—creates the inner conflict. Strong feelings like guilt and shame are inner-conflict creators, also.

The kinds of inner conflicts that I can think of are:

obey or disobey unjust parents, a certain society, or any other authority

the pain of blind ambition versus the moral self

the choice to stand up against cruelty and wrongdoing versus the security of the self or the ones the character loves

making a choice between a lose-lose situation or between a win-win situation

the lie to save himself can get another person the character loves in trouble

the character wants to own something but taking care of it is a dilemma

the character’s wish for fighting for a cause which might have terrible consequences or his wish for peace by letting things take care of themselves

loving two people with the same intensity but having to choose between them

wanting to redeem himself after a past wrongdoing and overcoming his guilt or shame

freeing oneself from a grim or dangerous life but feeling guilt for those he left behind

conflicting identities inside a character making him struggle for his self-image

trying to break a bad habit but finding it very difficult; to give up trying or not is the dilemma

something hidden inside a character that he is unaware of such as a yearning or a need, which makes him unhappy; then when he realizes it, he is afraid of going after that need or yearning