A conflict type where the protagonist struggles against the rules, expectations, institutions, or injustices of the world they live in.
Man vs. society puts a character in opposition to the larger systems, cultural norms, laws, or power structures that surround them. The antagonist isn't a single person - it's an entire way of life. This could mean fighting against an oppressive government, challenging racist or sexist norms, defying a rigid class system, or simply refusing to live the way everyone else says you should. The conflict feels enormous because the character is outnumbered and outpowered, and the thing they're fighting has been in place long before they showed up.
Some of the most powerful stories ever written are about one person standing against a broken system. These conflicts tap into something universal: the feeling that the world isn't fair and someone should do something about it. If you want to write stories that explore injustice, identity, belonging, or rebellion, man vs. society is your conflict type. It also lets you hold a mirror up to the real world through fiction, which is one of the most important things stories can do.
Offred exists inside a theocratic regime that has reduced women to their reproductive function. Her quiet acts of resistance are all the more powerful because the system seems unbreakable.
Atticus Finch defends a Black man falsely accused of assault in the Jim Crow South, knowing that the society around him has already decided the verdict.
Starr Carter witnesses a police shooting and must decide whether to speak out, knowing the systems of power arrayed against her community.
The protagonists slowly realize the horrifying purpose society has assigned to them, and the most chilling part is how quietly they accept it.
Real oppressive systems persist because they work for some people and because they're normalized. Show the complexity - the people who benefit, the people who are complicit without realizing it, the small comforts that make the system tolerable.
A teenager overthrowing an entire government in the final chapter strains credibility. Consider more nuanced endings: small victories, personal liberation even if the system endures, or the beginning of change rather than the completion of it.
Readers connect with people, not abstractions. The systemic injustice should threaten something specific and personal to your protagonist - their family, their safety, their identity, their love.
Pick a social norm or unwritten rule you find frustrating - dress codes, small talk expectations, social media performance, anything. Write a 300-word scene where your character publicly breaks that norm. Focus on the reactions of the people around them: shock, disapproval, nervous laughter, quiet admiration. Show how society enforces conformity through those reactions.