Selfishness In Anita's Dance

“Anita’s Dance” by Marian Engel and “My Last Hollywood Script” by Anzia Yezierska, the theme of selfishness contributes to both story to effect the character’s traits, the reason why the characters become selfish and the results come afterward. Both characters show their selfish actions in the pieces but for different purposes. The theme of selfishness is shown when two characters are doing certain things just for their own goods. In “MLHS,” the narrator describes the experience she had when writing her novel, saying that she stole bread from starving children because of hunger. In order to fulfill her dream of being a writer, she doesn't care about her sister’s nine children who are famish for food and eats up the whole meal by herself. Compare with the writer’s ruthlessness on her path to achieve her goal, Anita in “Anita’s Dance” shows her self-centered mind toward her family in life. She only cares about herself having a good life and refuses to contact her family again as her friends “lectured her being selfish.” However, Anita seems to have a more reasonable reason than the writer behind her self-serving behavior.

In “MLHS,” the writer’s living condition when she is creating her first novel is tough. She has to steal the food from the children in order to live since she only “live[s] for writing.” Also, in “Anita’s Dance,” Anita grows up in a family that she can't feel any love or warmth as her lazy mother always orders her child to do the housework instead of being a loving mother. Her university boyfriend demands her to give up her scholarship in order to achieve his academic goal. The people that Anita makes her become selfish as well and this is the way for her to protect herself. Anita and the writer’s reasons behind their selfish behavior are cause by the environment around them but cause different