Angela Garcia
Ms. Lehmann
English 1-3
3 December 2019
Selfish Essay
Do you think survival is selfish? This is the central question of this essay. Survival does require people to be selfish because people can't count on other people to save them, and people shouldn’t assume, they are capable of saving others; it could cost them their lives. Many survival stories prove that when people rely on someone to save them, it doesn’t really turn out the way they want it to.
Gonzales proves that people who waited to be saved during 9-11 died because rescue personnel couldn’t get to them “In the World trade Center disaster, many people who were used to following the rules died because they did what they were told by authority figures” (Gonzales 327). This shows that people need to do what they think is right in order to survive instead of following orders. Another survival story is about Juliane, a plane crash survivor. She didn’t just wait around for help like the others, who eventually died. She took initiative and saved herself. “Everyone who survived the crash stayed put, assuming that they’d be rescued” (Gonzales 326). She didn’t wait for anybody, and she, of all people, survived because she knew she couldn’t rely on others. Not only should people not assume they’ll be saved by others, but they also shouldn’t assume they are capable of saving others.
A woman who was in a plane crash survived only because she knew she could only save herself. “Could she really have saved the others? Probably not, certainly from the back of the plane. If she’d tried, she probably would have perished with them” (Wallace 318). Here, its shown that the woman survived only because she knew she couldn’t save others without injuring herself or killing herself. Yates had to make the decision to cut his friend loose, or they would have both died on the mountain. “Simpson ended up hanging off a cliff, unable to climb up, and Yates, unable to lift him up and losing his own grip on the mountain, ended up cutting the rope to Simpson to save himself” (Wallace 319). Here's another example of how people need to put themselves first. Yates knew that he would have died if he didn’t cut down his friend, and because his decision may have been the only reason he survived.
Although it's clear that survival is selfish, there are those who disagree. Some people argue that people need a reason to survive; this is often thinking of others and the loss they would suffer were they to die. The truth is they were probably also thinking of not wanting to die, not just about others. One example of this is when the Blockalteste from Night told all the other prisoners that they were going to be okay and that nothing was going to happen to them. The truth was that something was going to happen, but he selfishly lied to make his life easier. Ultimately, the evidence is overwhelming that survival is selfish.
People do have to be selfish because people can't count on other people to save them, and people shouldn’t assume they are capable of saving others; it could cost them their lives. You never know if someone is going to get to you, so you have to be selfish and save yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can't take care of other people. Is survival selfish? Yes.
Work Cited
Laurence, Gonzales. Deep Survival. Collections, edited by Kylene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol Jago, William L. McBride, Erik Palmer, & Lydia Stack. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2017, pp. 325-334.
Lane, Wallace. Is Survival Selfish? Collections, edited by Kylee Beers, Martha Houghen, Carol Jago, William L. Mc Bride, Erik Palmer, & Lydia Stack. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2017, pp. 317-320.
Argumentative Essay Reflection
Please answer all questions in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
- Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific.
2. What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them?
This qualifies as an argumentative essay because its about to different opinions and how people feel about them and also because its trying to get people to agree with there side of the story. Some requirements where that I couldn't loose my notes or I would of not known what I was doing.
3. Explain how you found at least one of the quotations from the essay and tell me why you chose that particular quote. What did it do for your paper?
One I found was “Could she really have saved the others? Probably not, certainly from the back of the plane. If she’d tried, she probably would have perished with them”. I chose this quote because it gave me an idea of how survival is selfish. It made my paper have more evidence of how survival is selfish.