With respect to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great
Gatsby, there are conflicts of all the types mentioned in the question with
the major conflict involving Jay Gatsby's attempt to regain the love of Daisy Buchanan,
a woman that he has idealized in his search for the idyllic and illusive American
Dream.
Physical
conflicts
While there is a physical tension
between Tom and Gatsby when Gatsby asks Daisy to tell her husband that she does not love
him, they do not come to blows. However, Tom certainly abuses Myrtle physically,
striking her full in the nose when she says the name of his wife in the hotel in New
York. In this display of brute force, Tom lets Myrtle know that she is still not worthy
of his home or social class.
Psychological
conflicts
Nick has internal conflicts as he
perceives the decadent life in New York with its dishonest Jordan Baker and supercilious
Tom Buchanan and frivolous and superficial guests at Gatsby's parties. Certainly, he
does not wish to involve himself with the clandestine meeting of Gatsby and Daisy.
There is no place for Nick because he is honest.
Jay Gatsby
tries to be someone that he is not and has trouble maintaining his facade. His attempts
to attain the social status that he feels necessary to win Daisy finds him frustrated
and almost desperate after the death of Myrtle
Wilson.
Social
conflicts
The social disparity between West
Egg and East Egg threads throughout the narrative of The Great Gatsby.
Despite his cruelty and villainy, Tom Buchanan remains socially superior to
Gatsby simply because of his family name and money. Of course, Gatsby's connections to
Meyer Wolfscheim pose conflicts for Gatsy's social mobility from West Egg.
Nevertheless, true to his dream, he remains more decent that the immoral and
materialistic East Egg, later becoming the sacrificial victim to this immorality as
Daisy abandons him in her struggle to escape complicity in the murder of Myrtle
Wilson.
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