Selfishness In The Great Gatsby

Daisy Buchanan is the cousin of the narrator, Nick Carraway, and the wife of Tom Buchanan. She is much like every character in the book and emphasizes the themes presented throughout The Great Gatsby. Despite her beauty, she is perhaps one of the most selfish and fickle characters in the book. One quote that shows Daisy’s selfishness is at the beginning of The Great Gatsby. Nick goes to Daisy’s house for the first time since he came to East Egg. It has been some time since Nick has last seen his cousin, and Daisy uses this time to catch up. It is here that Daisy says:
“I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me. “Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically. “The whole …show more content…
Most mothers are overjoyed when speaking about their children or at least mention their existence with happiness but Daisy doesn 't seem to do either. Rather than being a “typical mother”, she “irrelevantly added” the mere existence of her child. This shows her lack of interest, her shallowness and how little she cares about her daughter in comparison to herself. Also, the fact that she was able to make plans of going to Chicago with her husband before mentioning her child, shows her priorities in life are extremely distorted. A second quote that proves Daisy’s selfish personality is while she is talking to Nick on the front porch. Here, without Tom’s presence hovering over her, Daisy is able to open up to Nick more. It is here she says:
““We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn 't come to my wedding.” “I wasn’t back from war.” “That’s true.” She hesitated” (pg. …show more content…
151) “Keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men” is something most people would see as a selfish and careless thing to do. Daisy doesn’t seem to care about anybody in her life except for herself. Her habit of going to sleep at dawn with her expensive dresses thrown around on the floor exhibits her self-absorption as she only cares about her own feelings, not about the priceless things bought for her by others. The “dying orchids on the floor” suggest how Daisy’s interest in only her is causing her happiness to slowly die and turning her into an emotio nless, zombie-like person who cannot make decisions for herself. In many ways, Daisy is very fickle and can’t seem to decide on one thing, whether it be something small or extreme. One quote that proves Daisy’s fickleness is in a passage which describes Daisy’s “artificial world” while she was young, where it says:
“At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the