Character Analysis Of Mr. Van Daan In The Diary Of Anne Frank

The definition of a selfish person is, a person, action, or motive lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure, this definition is the splitting image of Mr.Van Daan. The play, The Diary of Anne Frank, was written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. The play takes place in Amsterdam, Holland during the Holocaust. The story is about a girl named Anne Frank and her family who are Jewish. To survive they go into hiding in the tight, small living space of the annex, located on top of the office building that had belonged to Mr. Otto Frank, Anne’s father. After the Holocaust, Mr. Frank goes back to the annex, after being liberated from Auschwitz, he finds Anne’s diary. The diary told the stories

of the life of a young girl in hiding for 2 years, she had written in it to kill the time while staying in the annex. To keep her story and memory alive, Mr. Frank would later publish the diary and it would then become a story known throughout the world. In her diary there were many entries about the people who she was staying with in the annex, which included Mr.Van Daan. Despite the fact that Mr.Van Daan should be grateful to the Franks, he is not; instead, he consistently puts himself before others.
Mr. Van Daan puts himself before others when he is greedy and rapacious and takes food out of his own son’s mouth, and the others in the annex. Mr. Van Daan goes into the food cabinet in the middle of the night, while the others are sleeping, so as to not be seen and takes bread. The food supply in the annex is very small, and there is
three ration books for the eight of them. To sneak around and go and steal food that could have possibly gone to his wife and or son, is very greedy and horrible thing to do. While the others are getting the usually amount, he is getting more. To show his greediness, the stage direction is of Mr.Van Daan stealing food, “A match suddenly flares up in the attic. We dimly see Mr. Van Daan. He is getting his bearings. He comes quickly down the stairs and goes to the cupboard where the food is stored. Again the match flares up, and is quickly blown out. The dim figure is seen to steal back up the stairs”(396).Mr. Van Daan is taking the food and tries to be quick about it, because he knows that if he gets caught, he will be kicked out of the annex. By doing this Mr.Van Daan, is showing the audience that he has a selfish side along with a greedy side.
Furthermore, Mr.Van Daan put himself before the others in the annex, because of his actions betraying him as an extremely selfish man.

It seems that the only person he seems to really care about is himself, he doesn’t care if he hurts anyone’s feelings, he doesn’t care that his other family members might be hungry. He only cares that he is well fed, that nobody hurts his feelings, he doesn’t even care enough to not fight with the others. In the play the Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan have a disagreement, and in the end he wins, but ends up hurting his wife’s feeling. “Just a little- discussion over the advisability of selling this coat. As I have often reminded Mrs. Van Daan, it’s very selfish of her to keep it when people outside are in such a desperate need of clothing. So if you will please to sell it for us? It should fetch a good price. And by the way will you get me some cigarettes. I don’t care what kind they are… get all you can”(414). While Mr.Van Daan is saying this he is fighting for the coat with his wife. She wants to keep it because her father gave it to her before he died, and he wants the money for cigarettes. He doesn’t care about his wife’s feelings or about the people outside, he just wants something for himself, something he won’t share with the others. To get what he wanted, Mr.Van Daan tries to sound like he is trying to help the people outside, but he really did it to get what he wanted. While everyone else in the annex helps out and puts others before themselves, Mr. Van Daan does

not.
Moreover, Mr. Van Daan is very hypocritical in the things that he says to the others in the annex. Even though it's “okay” for him to steal food, giving the cat table scraps is wrong. He blames the cat for taking all the food, even though he had taken some of the bread. Mr. Van Daan argues, “Don't tell me! He gets fatter every day! Damn cat looks better than any of us. Out he goes tonight”(406)! Mr. Van Daan sees that the cat is another thing that will take food away from him. He believes that to get rid of one thing, the cat for instance, he will get more food. He also needs to blame something for the lack of food, because he can't blame himself. Mr. Van Daan is so wrapped up about food that he doesn't want to take in another person, even though Mr. Frank took him and his family in, one more is one to many. He states, “Did Mr. Kraler warn you that you won’t get much to eat here? You can imagine . . . three ration books among the seven of us . . . and now you make eight”(392). Mr. Van Daan had to emphasis the fact that there is a small supply of ration books for just the seven of them and by taking Mr. Dussel in, it is going to be hard to share the food.
Mr. Van Daan is the type of character that nobody strives to be. Although he should be grateful to the Franks, Miep, etc. he is not; instead he is a selfish person and puts himself before everyone else in the annex. Nobody would take food away from their children like he does, or tell the others off for doing something when he does it, nobody would deliberately hurt someone's feelings. Mr. Van Daan is someone who hitting them with the chair would honestly be for the best, although many would agree it is not a play without him. There is always a need for those kinds of characters to move the play along and give you a reason to keep reading.