The Great Gatsby Part 3

We finished The Great Gatsby this week and the prompt for this blog is determining the central conflict. The central conflict is, I believe, person vs. self. The reason why this is the case is that Gatsby wanted to recreate his past as well as create a fake version of his current self, among other things. First off, he falsified his past in the way he interacted with his friends at parties and tried to conduct himself as if he had an elevated level of education, since this chapter reveals that he did not actually attend Oxford through graduation and instead only attended for 5 months. He also falsified the world around him by having his house look like it belonged in East Egg and spending money in flamboyant and erratic ways. The way colors are represented throughout the book all have a deeper meaning, in particular the color yellow. Gatsby owned a lot of yellow throughout his house, from his car to his tuxedo. The yellow represented the lie behind Gatsby’s money, self worth, and personal background. As you can see, the central conflict is person vs self, and how Gatsby is fighting to change who he is and where he came from, as well as where he wants to be in life.