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Daisy Buchanan Selfish Analysis

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Selfishness in Daisy Buchanan
Everyone at some point in their life will be selfish. The selfishness that will be discussed is not about sharing, but the selfishness that hurts people through our actions. Daisy Buchanan is a prime example of a selfish character. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan’s selfishness is present through many different events that happen throughout the novel.
One way Fitzgerald presents Daisy Buchanan’s selfishness is through her impatience for Jay Gatsby while he is away at war. Jay Gatsby and Daisy were lovers before Gatsby went away to war. While Gatsby was at war, Daisy became very impatient while waiting for his return. Daisy was under pressure from her family and friends to …show more content…

The Buchanans and Gatsby were all in town for the night. While in town, Daisy became very upset because Tom and Jay were fighting. Daisy drove home with Gatsby in Gatsby’s yellow car. As they passed by Myrtle’s home, Myrtle came running out into the road and Daisy hit Myrtle and fled the scene of the accident. Nick Carraway describes the Buchanans, especially Daisy, very well by stating, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy---they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” (Fitzgerald, 179). Daisy allowed Gatsby to take the blame for the murder of Myrtle. In Scott Donaldson’s article, On Possession & Character in The Great Gatsby, he mentions the corruption of the Buchanans as well: “Gatsby met Daisy, Nick tells us, only through the "colossal accident" of the war. Knowing he did not belong in her world, he ‘took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously ... took [Daisy] because he had no real right to touch her hand.’ Gatsby's later idealization of Daisy and their love redeems him, however, and he dies protecting her by his silence. He no more deserves to be shot than Myrtle deserves to be struck by a speeding car. Get mixed up with the Buchanans, and you end up dead” (Donaldson, On Possessions &

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