Essay: Selfishness is an innate nature

Selfishness is placing care or concern with oneself or one’s own profits above the well-being of others. This is one of the character trait of every human in the world since they were born and this characteristic of human being will keep xxxxx . Shirley Jackson explores this premise in her short story ‘The Lottery’ where people living in the village have an annual ritual known as ‘the lottery’, they will draw to choose a person to stone in oder to ensure a good harvest for the whole year. During the lottery, people are willing to do anything to prevent being selected because they are afraid to be chosen. So, selfishness is an inborn nature as people have an instinct to survive, most people do not wish anything bad happen to them and people do not care about other if the punishment will not fall on them.
People become selfish when they have to face the live or death situation because people have an instinct to survive. In order to survive, ‘me’ has to come first. This self-awareness is central to each and every one of us that becomes woven into the fabric of whose is important and who we are at different points depending upon the situation and our personality. This is clearly shown by Tessie Hutchinson when she said, ‘There is Don and Eva, make them take their chance!’. When the Hutchinson family was chosen in the first round of the lottery, Tessie Hutchinson was willing to risk her daughter’s and son-in-law’s lives in order to decrease the probability of herself being chosen. Tessie neglected her responsibility as a mother to protect her child and became selfish as she wanted to stay alive. Not only the mother, 2 children of the Hutchinson family show their selfishness in front of the critical situation. ‘Nancy and Bill.Jr beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd, showing their blank slips of paper above their heads’. These two young children were happily telling the crowd that they are safe but they were not worrying about their parents who had higher possibility to be stoned as long as they could survive. Tessie, Nancy and Bill.Jr showed that selfishness is an inborn personality by cause of the strong aptitude to survive.
Another reason why human are selfish is they do not wish anything bad happen to themselves. Human are timid and afraid of the possibility of getting something bad or suffering from bad luck. One more supporting sentence. In the short story, when Mr Summer brought the black box that kept all the papers to the square, all of the villagers kept their distance from the black box, no one but Mr Martin and his son helped Mr Summers to hold the box. This show that most of the villagers put their own concerns above the others, they were scared to touch the black box that symbolise the coffin because they thought it might bring them misfortune. Villagers in that time were not be chosen willingly for the good harvest of the village so they would try to avoid being selected. So, people are selfish and apathetic when the thing might bring adversity to them.
Besides, people are selfish and do not care for other if they are not the one who receive the punishment. This is the natural quality of human because when a person is in the safe area he will simmer down and do not take other people’s problem seriously even though they are in hot water. In the second paragraph of the short story, Shirley Jackson described the children selecting the smoothest and roundest stones to make a great pile of stones. It can be concluded that the children knew that it took longer time to kill people with smooth stones, therefore they can have more fun throwing stones at the person as they would not draw for the lottery. During the first round of drawing, Tessie encouraged her husband to draw the lottery, ‘ Get up there, Bill.’ Her action clearly shown that she was utterly willing to stone one of her neighbours, but when she was the one who was going to be stoned, she says, ‘It is not fair!’. After knowing the Hutchinson family was selected, Tessie’s friend, Mrs Delacroix stopped Tessie from complaining and elucidated that everyone took the same chance. Mrs Delacroix did not console her friend and support her to ask for a redraw but she bravely asked her friend to clam down and accepted the fact. She did not worry about her friend who might be killed by the villager. Most of the villager did not concern about others including their friends if they were safe.
Selfishness, as said earlier are traits of every human. This is necessary qualities in the basic theme ‘survival of the fittest’. People should not hide their helping hands when they think their sympathetic action might bring them to a worse circumstance. In conclusion, selfishness is an innate nature that one posses since born.