Aleksi Buhler Ms. Lehmann English 1-1A 15 November 2018 Survival Is Selfish In order to survive, sometimes you must be selfish and put your needs above others. The stories Night,“Deep Survival,” and “Is Survival Selfish?” by Elie Wiesel, Laurence Gonzales, and Lane Wallace all provide information that explains survival is selfish. In Elie Wiesel’sstory,Night,the author proves that survival is selfish. Wiesel describes a moment in Buchenwaldconcentration camp when he didn’t care whose names were written down during a selection and who wouldn’t survive as long ashe lived. Wiesel wrote “At that moment, the others did not matter! They had not written me down,” (Wiesel 310). Later on in the story, Wiesel once again proves that survival is selfish. In the story, the SS call the numbers of those who would die. Wiesel didn’t care who was written down, he was just glad to survive and go far from the block. Wiesel said, “Now, it no longer mattered that the work was hard. All that mattered was to be far from the block, far from the crucible of death, from the center of hell” (Wiesel 311). Wiesel explained that the thought of anyone in the camp dying didn’t cross his mind as long as he was safe. Laurence Gonzales gives more examples of survival being selfish in “Deep Survival.” Survival is also proven to be selfish in “Deep Survival,” by Laurence Gonzales. Gonzales talks about the World Trade Center disaster as a time when the selfish survived. Gonzales explains “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). Those who survived didn’t follow the rules put in place for everyone’s safety. They put themselves first. In “Deep Survival,” Gonzales once again proves that survival is selfish. Gonzales explains that sometimes people have to be selfish to survive. When talking about a 17-year-old plane crash survivor he says “A dozen other passengers survived the midair disintegration of Julian’s plane, and their attitude, and hence their behavior and fate, were quite different from hers” (Gonzales 325). Juliane left everyone else to die in order to save herself. She never tried to look for the plane and everyone else. Lane Wallace wrote more about survival being selfish. “Is Survival Selfish,” by Lane Wallace, provides the most compelling evidence that sometimes selfishness is a requirement for survival. Wallace argues that survival requires people to be selfish. Wallace writes, “There is a fine line between brave and foolish. There can also be a fine line between smart and selfish” (Wallace 320). Wallace explains that being brave and saving others before yourself is a foolish thing to do in a survival situation. As a result, being selfish is the smart thing to do. Wallace argues that survival requires that people be selfish. In the story, Wallace gives another example of survival being selfish. Wallace uses the story of a woman who saved herself from a plane crash. The other passengers were frozen, unmoving, and she crawled over them to safety. Wallace asks, “Could she really have saved others? Probably not...if she’s tried, she’d probably have perished with them. So why do survivors berate themselves for not adding to the loss by attempting the impossible?” (Wallace 318). Wallace points out that the woman in the story had to be selfish to survive, and it was only by looking after herself that she was able to make it out alive. In all of these short stories, survival is proven to be selfish. Some argue that survival is not selfish because people’s behavior in survival settings is a matter of instinct. Instinct, however, is designed to keep us alive, not to make us think of others. In Wallace’s story, he talks about a rock climber trying to help his injured friend down from the cliff, but they were both about to fall and die. In the story, the climber helping his friend had to decide whether to let them both fall and die or to cut his friend off to save himself. “In Yates’ case, he had time to think hard about the odds, and the possibilities he was facing, and to realize that he couldn’t save anyone but himself” (Wallace 319). In that story, if the climber wasn’t selfish,he and his friend could have died, and it’s better to have one person survive than to have two die. Sometimes you have no other choice than to be selfish in order to survive. The story Night, the essay “Deep Survival,” and the article “Is Survival Selfish” all prove that people need to be selfish to survive. Wiesel shows that in the camp he couldn’t make friends and care about other people, hehad to focus on himself and his health to survive. Gonzales talked about the World Trade Center disaster and how some people did not listen to the rules that were there to keep everyone safe; they left the building instead of staying in as they were told to do by the police. Wallace talked about a plane crash and how the girl that survived didn’t even try to help anyone out, but her time was limited, so in order to survive, she had to put herself first.In all ofthese stories, survival was proven to be selfish. In Night, the boy only cared about his own safety. In “Deep Survival,” a 17-year-old girl saves herself. In “Is Survival Selfish,” a woman crawls over others to save herself. All these show that selfishness isnecessary in all of these situations in order to survive. Works Cited Wiesel, Elie.Night.Collections, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017, pp.307-312. Gonzales, Laurence. “Deep Survival.” Collections, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017, pp.325-334. Wallace, Lane. “Is Survival Selfish?” Collections, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017, pp.317-320.
Argumentative Essay Reflection 1. List one thing you've learned from writing this paper that you can apply to other writing assignments. What will that look like?
Answer: In this paper I learned how to transition between stories.
2. 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?
Answer: I had to add more comas and periods. I needed to show where the sentence ended and when I wanted to add a little more to a sentence.
3. What are the conventions of an argumentative essay and how did you meet those in this assignment?
Answer:In an argumentative essay you have to argue your opinion and why it's right with evidence.
4. Given more time to work on this assignment, how would you improve it?
Answer:I would have put more information and made my argument stronger.
5. What is one thing you're proud of in this paper?
Answer: I'm proud of the side I argued. Not many people argued the yes, Survival Is Selfish side because they thought it was more difficult.