Theme of Survival in Literature Essay Example

📌Category: Books, Literature, Lord of the Flies
📌Words: 527
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 02 February 2022

Survival can be seen as a hero saving all mankind or simply just a regular person only trying to see the light of the next day. Survival is something that people need every day, only some know how to manage and use it to push themselves. The Lord of the Flies, The Sniper, and The Most Dangerous Game all show that having the will to live is key to survival. 

Ralph in the Lord of the Flies portrays the will to live by continuing to try to stay civilized. When Jack and his hunters let the fire out, Ralph said, “We’ve got to start the fire again,” (115 Golding).  After the stranded schoolboys let the fire go out, Ralph wants to rebuild the fire immediately, but the other boys continued with their fun and games. As Jack is starting to go savage, he says, “We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe, come and see us,” (140 Golding). Jack, one of Ralph’s greatest enemies on the island, takes advantage of almost every single boy. Jack wants to make the boys go against Ralph and have “fun.” At the end of the Lord of the Flies, Ralph is the only one who had this longing to survive, which is why most of the boys survived because of him.

In The Most Dangerous Game, Rainsford takes advantage of his fear to push him to survive. Rainsford is a very mentally strong character that portrays what surviving takes. According to the author, “His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native trick he learned in Uganda,” (199 Connell). Most people under pressure end up losing common sense and do something arrogant, but Rainsford does the complete opposite. He makes use of this terrible feeling called fear to push him to survive the deadly game. In paragraph 202… “Nerve, nerve, nerve!” he panted as he dashed along,” (Connell). Rainsford continues to push himself throughout his deadly adventure. Rainsford would have died if he did not have this instinct to live and work with his fears.

The main character in The Sniper must use his quick decisions to determine his survival. The Sniper is a very powerful character that has gotten so used to the way war impacts a soldier every day, that it is instinct. According to the author, “A man’s head and shoulders appeared looking toward the sniper. The sniper raised his rifle and fired,” (47-48 O’Flaherty). Before the Sniper pulls the trigger that will end a person’s life, he has no second thoughts, no “what ifs” come across his mind, just that he must survive. In paragraph 79… “Mourning must not find him wounded on the roof,” (79 O’Flaherty). The main character has this instinct that he must fulfill, he must survive. The Sniper embraces this instinct that does help him survive but leaves him alone with the death of his victims.

The Lord of the Flies, The Sniper, and The Most Dangerous Game all show that taking advantage of their instinct is necessary to survive. All the characters use this instinct even though they don’t process the logic behind it.  The characters don’t even have to concur about what they need to do, they just know they must live. The representation the stories show us is that we all have this instinct, it just depends on how we control and use it.

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