Egotism is Inevitable

Egotism is a flaw that every human must learn to shake off as we grow into socially acceptable beings. However, every human is innately egoistic and inevitably inclined to act in this manner rather than the morally accepted altruistic behavior. An egoistic behavior is heavily backed up by the interactions between characters of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the sins carried by the men in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and the embodiment of egoism by Daisy in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

“Their self-interest keeps them alive as ‘they went on and he didn’t look back again’”

To start off, McCarthy’s novel titled The Road displays many instances where egoism is prevalent. A first instance where this immoral behavior could be seen is during the story about how the boy’s mother left him and his father: “She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift. She would do it with a flake of obsidian. He’d taught her himself. Sharper than steel. The edge an atom thick. And she was right. There was no argument. The hundred nights they’d sat up arguing the pros and cons of self destruction with the earnestness of philosophers chained to a madhouse wall. In the morning the boy said nothing at all and when they were packed and ready to set out upon the road he turned and looked back at their campsite and he said: She’s gone isn’t she? And he said: Yes, she is”(McCarthy 58). The harshness of her suicide and the pain and ‘coldness’ it left behind further emphasizes egotism. Symbolism is implied where her final gift is the suffering the man and the boy will endure as a loved one has taken the easy way out. The mother decides that the post-apocalyptic world is truly unbearable and shows greater concern for herself as she abandons her family at an extremely low point. This relates to the theme of loss and suffering as the mother’s egoism is essentially what inspires painful memories in both the man and the boy. Her suicide created an unfillable void in their lives. 

Following this, the boy and the father both abandon a man for the sake of their own survival and create a void for him as he is left with nothing. They discuss,“No. We cant help him. There’s nothing to be done for him. They went on. The boy was crying. He kept looking back. When they got to the bottom of the hill the man stopped and looked at him and looked back up the road. The burned man had fallen over and at that distance you couldn’t even tell what it was. I’m sorry, he said. But we have nothing to give him. We have no way to help him. I’m sorry for what happened to him but we can’t fix it. You know that, don’t you? The boy stood looking down. He nodded his head. Then they went on and he didn’t look back again”(McCarthy 50). The narrator uses effective word choice by saying that you couldn’t even tell what the burned man was in order to create an image of how horrible the man’s death was. This further demonstrates that even though an old man suffered immensely at the moment of his death as he literally burned to nothing, the man explains to his son that helping him in any way would lead to disaster for them. He reassures the boy by explaining that they can’t fix the situation, implying that they only had enough resources for themselves. This relates to the idea of egoism and comes back to the major theme of death present all throughout the novel. Their self-interest keeps them alive as ‘they went on and he didn’t look back again’.

Towards the end of the novel, the man and the boy encounter the man that stole from them, and the desperate thief explains how he only took from them in effort to also stay alive. They exchange words:  “You tried to kill us. I’m starving, man. You’d have done the same. You took everything. Come on, man. I’ll die. I’m going to leave you the way you left us. Come on. I’m begging you”(McCarthy 257). Once again, effective word choice is used as the man exclaims that he stole everything from them. Though they did not have much physically, the old man stole weeks of effort and any hope they had of surviving. This further demonstrates egotism as he would have destroyed a family’s chance of survival for his own benefit. This also goes the other way as the old man explains how they would have also ‘done the same’ for the sake of survival which is certainly not altruistic. This relates to the theme of desperation because the man and the boy steal from homes countless times at low points in order to survive(further proving the old man’s point).

Furthermore, the Vietnam war is a low point portrayed as a horrific and traumatic experience for soldiers involved. In O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the stories allow readers to visualize how egotistical behavior is essential and almost normal during a time such as this one. After Curt Lemon’s death, some of the men torture a buffalo and realize how cruel people have become: “Mitchell Sanders took out his yo-yo. ‘Well, that’s Nam,’he said. ‘Garden of Evil. Over here, man, every sin’s real fresh and original.’”(O’Brien 76). A biblical allusion is presented where the Garden of evil is a reference to the Bible’s Garden of Eden and the original sin. This further emphasizes egoism as it explains why all humans are baptized: all humans are born sinners and must be cleansed in order to be faithful to Jesus. It also creates the image of Vietnam as a place where sin/violence is almost a normal occurrence and egoism is expressed frequently because someone else will kill you if you don’t kill them first. The theme of death and traumatism is prevalent as they are both the result of the sins and egotistical behavior.

Last, the central character of Daisy Buchanan in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby could be seen as the literal embodiment of egotistical behavior and sin which consequently leads to the protagonist’s fall. After murdering Myrtle, Daisy takes advantage of Gatsby who is love struck and lets him take the blame for the death of the woman. “‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was. You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive — and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way. It all happened in a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock — it must have killed her instantly’”(Fitzgerald 143-144). This whole passage foreshadows Gatsby’s inevitable downfall/death. The fact that he is so love struck makes him vulnerable, and Daisy certainly wouldn’t want to take the blame for her own actions. This display of egotism later leads to Gatsby’s death as he is murdered by Myrtle’s furious husband who came to seek revenge for his wife’s death. If altruism was expressed, perhaps Gatsby’s death could have been avoided and he wouldn’t have been shot for a woman who was more affectionate about the only person more egotistical than her in the novel(her husband). This relates to the theme of selfishness because egotism takes control of Daisy, and she lets an innocent man die for her mistake.

In essence, the interactions between the characters in The Road, the sins of all the men in Vietnam in The Things They Carried, and the character Daisy in The Great Gatsby all prove that humans are innately egotistic. The novels, though very distinct from one another, all reveal the fact that humans will always choose their own personal gain even if it means the detriment of others. How could most societies continue to thrive despite a majorly egoistic world ?

Work Cited

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Alfred A. Knopf, 2020.

Lathbury, Roger. The Great Gatsby. Gale Group, 2000.

Bloom, Harold. Tim O’Brien’s the Things They Carried. Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2011.