The Relationship between Selfishness and Lack of Self Acceptance
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELFISHNESS AND LACK OF SELF ACCEPTANCE AS SHOWN IN CARVER’S “ THE NEIGHBOURS”
The fact that brings closer both terms selfishness and lack of self acceptance in terms of relationship will be the big concern of explaining how these concepts are related. Mostly, the source of task will be based on the original text “The neighbors” and other sources will also be taken as reference to support and explain the ideas extracted from the original text. In explaining this in details, it will be very helpful to first define some key terms such as selfishness and lack of self acceptance.
To define the word “selfishness” Stein (1966:1294) provides the definition of the word “selfish” that is “Devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one 's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others ….” This means that one can even enjoy the situation in which others are crying. It does not matter whatever can happen to others. Luwangala (2007), in his short story “The reunion”, shows an example of a selfishness case where he narrates a story of one lady called Nancy, who was away from her family for two weeks two weeks, and when she came back home, she found things scattered like there had been a funeral. Nancy then thought erroneously of her son Joshua and started crying. When she saw him, she forgot that she had found the family in mourning, she jumped and picked her son up, and she hugged him tight onto her bosom until he suffocated on her love.
On the other side, “lack of self acceptance” means failure to be happy with whom one is. Hunter (2002) discusses the terms self-realization, self-understanding and self-acceptance to explain this. Self-acceptance is one’s being loving. It is an agreement with oneself to appreciate or accept, and support who she/he is.
The narrator of “The neighbors” short story draws the relationship between selfishness and lack of self-acceptance from the characters that he deployed in the story.
The fact that brings closer both terms selfishness and lack of self acceptance in terms of relationship will be the big concern of explaining how these concepts are related. Mostly, the source of task will be based on the original text “The neighbors” and other sources will also be taken as reference to support and explain the ideas extracted from the original text. In explaining this in details, it will be very helpful to first define some key terms such as selfishness and lack of self acceptance.
To define the word “selfishness” Stein (1966:1294) provides the definition of the word “selfish” that is “Devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one 's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others ….” This means that one can even enjoy the situation in which others are crying. It does not matter whatever can happen to others. Luwangala (2007), in his short story “The reunion”, shows an example of a selfishness case where he narrates a story of one lady called Nancy, who was away from her family for two weeks two weeks, and when she came back home, she found things scattered like there had been a funeral. Nancy then thought erroneously of her son Joshua and started crying. When she saw him, she forgot that she had found the family in mourning, she jumped and picked her son up, and she hugged him tight onto her bosom until he suffocated on her love.
On the other side, “lack of self acceptance” means failure to be happy with whom one is. Hunter (2002) discusses the terms self-realization, self-understanding and self-acceptance to explain this. Self-acceptance is one’s being loving. It is an agreement with oneself to appreciate or accept, and support who she/he is.
The narrator of “The neighbors” short story draws the relationship between selfishness and lack of self-acceptance from the characters that he deployed in the story.
References: Roberts, V.E. and Jacobs, E.H. “The Neighbors” short story of Raymond Carver Published in “Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing” (8th Edition). by Person, Prentice Hall. The King James Version of the Holy Bible, Dan Cogliano, 2001. http://www.davince.com/bible Stein, J. “The Random House Dictionary of English Language” Random House, New York. 1966. Hunter, R. J “Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling” Abingdom Press, Nashville, 2002. Ruangala, J.R. “The innocence of a Dog” Unza press, Lusaka-Zambia, 2007. Roberts, V.E. and Jacobs, E.H. “The Necklace” short story ” Published in “Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing” (8th Edition). by Person, Prentice Hall. Roberts, V.E. and Jacobs, E.H. “Everyday Use” short story of Alice Walker Published in “Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing” 8th Edition. by Person, Prentice Hall.