In The Leap by Louise Erdrich whether survival requires selfishness or not appears situational. One could argue that Anna survives by making a selfish choice in the trapeze accident narrated at the start of the story, but on the other hand, as she is pregnant, her choice to survive rather than to try to save her husband is also a choice to try to save not only herself but the child growing in her womb.
Anna risks her own life to save her child from a fire and survives. In this case, the story suggests that survival of the family depends on being unselfish and willing to take risks to save others.
Although the narrator initially leaves home and creates her own life in the west, at the end she returns home to read to Anna who is now blind and unable to read. This again suggests that Erdrich values community and family and sees survival not as selfish individualism but as mutual interdependence and cooperation.
One could argue either for or against the notion that self-survival requires selfishness. However, it is a generally accepted idea that the dominant impulse for human beings is their instinct for self-preservation.
Some people have been criticized for acting in ways that ensured their physical survival while others have perished. Such was the case with mountain climber Simon Yates who, as relayed in his book Touching the Void, cut loose his injured climbing partner, Joe Simpson, lest they both die.
In many cases, those who acted to saved themselves may not have been able to save others and may very well have perished along with them. Yet, many of these people have reported feeling guilty for surviving even though they know they could not have saved anyone else.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/01/is-survival-selfish/34962/
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