What is the main conflict in The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck?

The character of Ethan is presented as a man who believes he is handling a bad situation with grace and goodness, but is then confronted by temptations and the revelation that everyone in his life sees him as a failure. Ethan tries to deal with these events by calling upon the memories of his grandfather and Aunt Deborah, by alternately believing and disbelieving in fate, and by the lessons he learned during World War II. At the end, his character is a man totally lost, with no one to turn to, with his symbolic light going out.