what are maggies childhood conflicts?

Maggie is the very intelligent, very conflicted protagonist of The Mill on the Floss. When the novel begins, she is young, clever, imaginative, adoring of her brother, and always getting into trouble. As she grows up, she regularly feels conflicted between acting how her extended family and community would want her to, and following her own desires. The strong pull of both means she is often indecisive, and though she tries to find peace in renouncing all desire - for education, music, love, literature - in the end this only makes her feelings stronger. Even when she chooses based on her desire, though, as when she starts to elope with Stephen, she ultimately feels the pull of her family and community too strongly, and can’t bear to follow through on gaining happiness at their expense.