What is the main conflict in Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe?

Look Homeward, Angel contains all the experiences that the apprentice-hero usually passes through, except the religious ordeal. The story presents the struggle of young Eugene Gant to free himself from his environment and particularly to break free of a possessive mother. He passes through common childhood experiences in conflict with his brothers and sisters. He opens up his imagination through the world of books. He develops sexual curiosity. He reaches out for wider horizons under the guidance of sympathetic teachers in school. He gets his first job. He finds new intellectual freedoms and bewilderments in college. He undergoes sexual initiation. He is introduced to alcohol (the sacred brew of twentieth-century initiation rites). He faces the problem of death when his favorite brother is swept away in the influenza epidemic. He falls in love and endures loss of love. He makes the break from home, and, as the book comes to a close, he reaches an interpretation of life and finds a way of life that he can follow.