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

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