Do you think survival is selfish? People have debated about this very question for years.
This essay will argue that survival is not selfish, as is proven by authors Louise Erdrich, Laurence Gonzales, and Lane Wallace. The first author who shows survival is not selfish is Louise Erdrich.
Erdrich’s short story “The Leap” provides many examples of situations where survival does not require people to be selfish, The narrator explains that her mother was part of a blindfolded trapeze act; on a stormy day, their tent was struck by lightning in the middle of a show. Her husband fell and he died, but the narrator’s mother saved her unborn baby and herself. Later, the narrator says, “My mother once said that I’d be amazed at how many things a person can do within the act of falling” (Erdrich 342). This proves that the mother had time to think, and she chose to save her baby instead of falling with her husband. By thinking of her child first, she also saved herself. Later in the story,Erdrich gives us another situation like this one. Erdrich talks about the same mother going into a burning building to save her daughter. The narrator explains, “I didn’t see her leap through the air,only heard the sudden thump and looked out my window. She was hanging from the backs of her heels from the new gutter” (Erdrich 345-346). This decision saved both of them; Erdrich proves that survival is not selfish by telling us about this
2 / 4 mother and her decision to save her daughter. Both of these scenarios prove that people don’t have to be selfish to survive. Laurence Gonzales provides even more evidence. The essay “Deep Survival” by Gonzales, also proves that survival is not selfish. Gonzales describes a group of pilots who survived by sticking together. Kearns, a survival guide leading the pilots, says “‘All at once, it hit me that I might actually lose them. Those million-dollar pilots could die”(Gonzales 331). Kearn's fear that the pilots might die gave him the strength to save the others and survive himself. Gonzales explains that some people can be well prepared and die while others can be unprepared and still survive. He says “Searchers are always amazed to find people who have died while in possession of everything they needed to survive. John Leach writes that “victims have been recovered from life rafts with a survival kit (containing flares, rations, first-aid kit and so on) unopened and the necessary contents used unused.”
“Is Survival Selfish,” by Lane Wallace, provides the most compelling evidence that people don’t have to be selfish to survive. He argues that people aren’t selfish in survival situations. In his explanation of the real life tragedy of the Titanic, he says “One of the few men to survive the tragedy was J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of the company that owned the ship. After the disaster, however, Ismay was savaged by the media and the general public for climbing into a life boat and saving himself when there was still women and children on board”
3 / 4 (wallace 317). But a point to prove that J. Bruce Ismay was actually trying to do a good thing and he put as many women and children
4 / 4 Works cited
Erdrich, Louise. “The Leap.” collections, Huffington Mifflin Harcourt, 2017,pp. 339-346
Wallace,Lane. “is Survival Selfish” collections,Huffington Mifflin Harcourt, 2017, pp. 317-318
Argumentative Essay Reflection Questions Answer all questions with complete, grammatically correct sentences. Be specific and thoroughly address each question.
List one thing you've learned from writing this paper that you can apply to other writing assignments. What will that look like? I found out that i can pick pieces of books or article and create an argument from it and be able to stick up for that argument.
Identify a specific revision you were asked to make and explain why (this can be at any stage of the writing process). How did you revise? What did you learn? I mostly had to cite and revise a section in the story.
What are the conventions of an argumentative essay and how did you meet those in this assignment? you have to create and argument, write a claim, and write a rebuttle.
Given more time to work on this assignment, how would you improve it? i would have added more of the needed things i needed to get a better grade.
What is one thing you're proud of in this paper? how i actually, even though it might not be good, made a full argumentative paper.