How Is Daisy Selfish In The Great Gatsby

Ever wanted to become part of the wealthy class and live a luxurious, and stress free life? F. Scott Fitzgerald shows how that idea of wealth and being stress free is impossible. The novel The Great Gatsby is a novel revolving around five rich individuals and one poorer woman, Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, Jordan Baker, Nick Carraway, and Myrtle Wilson who is not apart of the rich class. Many conflicts arise in this book due to the greed of money and some of these actions lead onto death and deception of love. The conflicts arise between Gatsby's love with Daisy and the affairs between Tom and his mistress, Myrtle. The negatively displayed aspects of the wealthy elites in The Great Gatsby presents Fitzgerald’s view of how money

Daisy is blind to her own daughter, the idea of being able to have the capability to create life is withdrawn from the eyes of Daisy and what most people would consider a blessing to have: “Shes asleep. She's three years old. Haven't you ever seen her?” “Never.”(Fitzgerald 10) Daisy is cynical and caught up in the thought of money she is oblivious to her own offspring as they proceed to talk about bonds. The bonds collect money and that is what Daisy is most interested in and this shows how rich people only care in what benefits them and are clueless to anything else. Daisy also likes to hide from the truth and the reality she lives in by utilising the large sums of cash she has:”But she and Tom had gone away that afternoon and taken baggage with them.”(Fitzgerald 164) Daisy likes to use money to get away from all of her problems because she cannot face the conflict of the world she lives in and backs up the idea that they care only for themselves. The reason they came to New York was to start over and get away from Toms affairs and as he found another mistress the past was then on a loop of repetition of their past actions of escaping their old state of emotions. This shows how the past repeats when change does not occur in a negative lifestyle and it relates to the last line of the book:”so we beat on, boats against the current,

Yet her thoughts were still affected by money:” I want to get one of those dogs she said earnestly”(Fitzgerald 27) When Myrtle first gets together with Tom she immediately starts to become greedy and wants to buy a dog with Toms money. Leading to Tom being intimidated by her which makes her out to be crazy because her and Tom both lose control of their actions resulting in a brutal ending. Tom to Myrtle represents the life she doesnt have and the wealthy lifestyle Wilson couldn’t give her:”Beat me! He heard her cry..Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!” As soon as Myrtle was told she was going to move away from Tom and his money she thought now that her life was over, causing her to throw herself into traffic and die. The thought of being with only Wilson, her poor husband, bewildered her as he couldn’t offer her much and she was greedy for more. Now seeing that money affects the minds of whoever gets a touch of it, displays how powerful money