Selfishness Analysis

A central topic in “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is selfishness. For example, the narrator only helped Doodle because he “was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk.” (Hurst 1) This shows that he was selfish because he cared what people thought of him, not the well being of his brother. Another

Human nature dictates that every action, no matter how selfless it appears, is inspired by a selfish reason. Flannery O'Connor shows this taken into consideration in her short story, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”. The protagonist, Mr. Shiftlet, wanders onto the farm of old and young Lucynell. Mr. Shiftlet marries her daughter young Lucynell and does a handful of work for her including fixing her car, which he sees as a way of achieving freedom. With her use of symbolism and characterization O'Connor reveals that people play games of deceit to win their own selfish ends (Walters 82).

William E. Gladstone once said: “Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race.” In the novel The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, a boy named Holling Hoodhood has an enormous problem. His teacher despises him and he’s on his own. The worst part about it is that his own father would not help him because infuriating his teacher could, in turn, shatter his father’s successful but still fragile company, which Holling is to inherit if it’s still there when he is of age. But the problem is, is his father worried about himself, or the fact that Holling might not be able to succeed him in the company?

Human beings all have selfish tendencies, we tend to care for ourselves more than we care for others but how far would you go to get what you want?Would you kill? Would you steal? What would you do ? I Arthur Miller's the Crucible Abigail Williams is one of the most important characters but she chooses to be very selfish and chooses to put her own needs first which caused several people to lose their lives.

Hasrat Mehta Mrs. Yan Writing Process December 9, 2015 Elizabeth Bishop demonstrates the idea of selfishness of humans in “The Farmer’s Children” by using many literary techniques. The story is about two children, Emerson and Cato, who live with their father, stepsisters and stepmother. Their father usually goes to town to drink, leaving his kids with their stepmother, who only cared for her biological daughters. Once, Emerson and Cato, were sent to take care of their family’s barn in a freezing night of December. The frighteningly cold weather eventually led to their death.

Not caring for others can make someone not see the big things in life. In the short story Box Nine by Rob Thomas, a girl named Teesha is doing a community service project during Thanksgiving to give food to the poor in order to walk the stage for graduation. Teesha is accompanied with other students throughout this community service project who don’t care about the poor people and only about themselves. Selfishness can make a person not care for others because the students questioned the poor people's life choices. When the students delivered box six the students saw a man puffing cigarettes and wondered why he was able to afford cigarettes and not food.

In the short story " Barn Burning" by William Fualkner it highlights how the choices people make in life can affect others. Abner and his family are very poor. A description of Sarty aware us of this " small and wiry like his father, in patched and faded jeans even to small for him, with straight uncombed brown hair" Abner retaliates on the rich land owners who pays him a lacking quantity

The short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst elucidates the theme “selfish people aren’t the ones that suffer their selfishness: it's those around them, in which it harms”. The story is about a boy who received a brother after six years of being an only child, but because of an unfortunate disease, his brother wasn’t expected to live long. He unexpectedly lived far longer that anticipated, so his parents finally named him: William Armstrong. Because William wasn’t “all there”, his brother had plans to kill him with a pillow, but his plan was corrupted when his brother smiled at him, showing that he was “all there”. The narrator (who is also William’s big brother) renamed his brother Doodle.

A good example of selfishness that we can see in this book is when Kemmerich dies. When he dies, the first thing Muller thinks about is taking his boots. “When Kemmerich is dead it will be too late. Therefore

Selfishness is something to watch out for in life, if you let it follow you it can cause your life to turn down the wrong path, and can forever destroy you when your life is finally set in place. In the traditional story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens follows a greedy selfish old man in the 1800’s of England. Ebenezer Scrooge was a old grumpy man who was visited by 3 spirits to make him see that he need to change his selfish ways. In the modern work of Dr. Seuss, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Grinch stole all of the Who’s toys and Christmas Decorations down in Whoville but when Cindy Lou Who tries to get him to believe in Christmas he refuses. Until he see’s that Christmas isn’t about the toys and decor it is about the time

Altruism, Self-Interest and, “The Help” By: 600150501 “The Help” suggests that self-interest often trumps altruism. There are events in the movie that indicate that even when the intentions were targeted towards a selfless concern about the welfare of others, it will eventually become self-interest. Also, those that are privileged do not want to give up their ruling title. In fact, they will do anything to preserve their image, even if it means deceiving others and lessening the image of the ones already ranked below them.

Selfless or Selfish George is being selfless when killing Lennie at the end of the novel because George is life would be way easier if Lennie was not with him. Some people may say that George was being selfish, however Lennie, being put into a crazy house would make George suffer knowing that Lennie is being tortured. Some people may say the opposite that George was being selfish for killing him, however George was not going to risk that, "Lennie—if you jus ' happen to get in trouble like you always done before, I want you to come right here an ' hide in the brush… Hide in the brush till I come for you”(15). George had a feeling that Lennie would be getting in trouble, he knows that Lennie does not mean any harm, but he still harms

Self-Sacrifice and happiness are two topic that Ayn Rand argues about in a very objective and intellectual style, but because of the way she misinterpreted selfishness was wrong, the explanation of self-sacrifice was misleading. Rand fails to see the point of how society views happiness and fails to convey it. Rand argues that the society defines selfishness as it’s the “synonym of evil” or “brutes who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve their own ends. ”(7).

Even the good people can be selfish too. The bad people are doing bad things, but the good people are too selfish to even help. In the story “The Diary of Anne Frank” the family has been hiding from the Germans for a long time. They have little food and little amounts of everything. Mrs.Frank catches one of the VaanDaans stealing.

Utilitarian suggest that we make our moral decisions from the position of a benevolent, disinterested spectator. Rather than thinking about