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The Importance Of Selfishness In Literature

Decent Essays

Selfishness is defined as the act of being someone who lacks concern for others, only caring for personal gain. Often, people are selfish due to a lack of empathy, misinformation, or a lack of information. The ability of literature to have us experience different worlds through different perspectives is fairly useful for combating this. In fact, literature can shock us about the idea of selfishness and give us pause and new insights into it, if not necessarily cause us to realize our own lack of selflessness and shock us out of it.
Literature is able to influence what we believe about the world. It is a very well known and well-documented phenomenon. Several studies and anecdotes have shown that people form a worldview from their …show more content…

For instance, the 5th paragraph:
I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife 's duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them. (Judy 5)

The entire article has this mockingly serious tone throughout, done in order to make it so that the reader ponders about the mindset of a person who performs this blatant exploitation. This paragraph, along with the rest of the article, shows just how utterly selfish the idea of the ideal wife is through its use of a blunt voice and the author purposefully writing it as if it had a lack of irony and self-awareness. When I read this, I could tell exactly what she was talking about. She caused me to think about a form of selfishness that exists in the world.
Additionally, what people read influences how they perceive the world. In turn, this influences what and to whom they like and are sympathetic towards. I once needed to write a nonfiction essay for a school assignment, and I choose to write about video games, specifically about their artistic potential and about esports. I choose that subject since I love video games, and have amassed a wealth of knowledge about those topics over many years worth of

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