In some ways, Man vs. Man comprises the most basic form of literary conflict. The protagonist faces another person or persons whose goals stand in opposition to him. In some cases, the conflict may be overt: for example, the sheriff of a western town fighting the bandits terrorizing it. But the conflict can also be emotional or mental, such as a police inspector trying to induce a robbery suspect to confess.
Man vs. Nature pits the antagonist against the forces of the natural world. He may be stranded in the wilderness, struggling to survive, or perhaps he is trying to pilot a boat through a ferocious hurricane. In the 1851 novel "Moby Dick," by Herman Melville, the character Captain Ahab pits himself against a great white whale--metaphorically against the forces of nature that the whale represents.
Stories depicting Man vs. Society show the protagonist as a revolutionary, iconoclast or even a criminal. Rather than battling against specific individuals, he fights against larger elements of the culture around him. For example, he may work to overthrow a corrupt regime, or to expose the hypocrisies of a compromised justice system. He may simply defy socially accepted conventions about who he is supposed to be, as the character Holden Caulfield does in 1951 novel "The Catcher in the Rye," by J. D. Salinger.
Stories depicting Man vs. Himself delve into the protagonist's internal world. He battles not against external forces, but against his own doubts and fears. He may face a moral quandary--tempted with doing the wrong thing and struggling with his desires--or he may struggle with his guilt over committing a crime. Examples of protagonists undergoing internal conflicts include Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet" written sometime between 1599 and 1601, or the murderer in Feodor Dostoevsky's 1866 novel "Crime and Punishment."
Although a piece of literature can entail just one type of conflict, many tales use multiple types of conflict. For instance, in Shakespeare's play "Macbeth," written sometime between 1603 and 1607, the title character struggles against both his own ambitions (Man vs. Himself) and the nobles standing between him and the throne (Man. vs. Man).