Short answer: The main conflict is Miguel’s desire to be a musician and follow his personal calling versus his family’s strict, generational ban on music. That clash is both external (him vs. his family’s rules and expectations) and internal (his need for self‑expression vs. loyalty to family).
Step‑by‑step explanation:
- Origin of the ban: Years earlier, an ancestor left the family to pursue music. Miguel’s great‑great‑grandmother Imelda felt betrayed and declared music to be the cause of the family’s pain. She forbade music and steered the family into shoemaking as a safe trade.
- Miguel’s passion: Miguel idolizes musicians (especially Ernesto de la Cruz) and feels music is essential to who he is. He practices in secret and fantasizes about performing, which directly contradicts the family’s rule.
- Daily tension: The family enforces the ban strictly—music is treated as shameful and disloyal. When Miguel pursues music publicly (or is discovered), he is met with anger, punishment, and pressure to conform to the family’s expectations.
- Escalation: Miguel steals a guitar to prove himself and, through a chain of events, ends up in the Land of the Dead. There he begins to discover the family history and the deeper truths behind the ban.
- Revelation and resolution: Miguel learns the real story: the ancestor the family blamed didn’t do what they thought—Héctor (not Ernesto) was the one who actually had a relationship with Imelda’s husband, and Ernesto stole Héctor’s songs and fame. When the truth comes out, the family reconsiders the ban, reconciles their identity, and eventually accepts music as part of who they are.
Bottom line: The conflict drives the plot because it raises questions about identity, loyalty, and truth—Miguel must choose between honoring his family’s rules and following his own gift, and the story resolves when family history is understood and the two are brought back into balance.