Alexander Pearce Cases Like The Donner Party
Hunger is a powerful feeling. It can dominate the human body and remove any lasting sense of rationality. It can make one do incredible things, like eating. However, hunger has another dimension to it. It can remove even the most self-aware man’s sanity in a split second.
Empathy is brushed off to the side and survival is the lone thought running through the mind of one who is starving to death. Even though all human beings are subject to hunger at multiple points throughout their respective lives, most have access to food and a pantry or fridge, thus killing a friend or family member is a less appealing option for survival. But in cases like that of Alexander Pearce, friendship is not always an option. Cases like the Donner Party, for example, are ones of people relying on the survival instincts given to them at birth. They were forced to resort to cannibalism not by choice, but by instinct. None of them would have deprived another human being of existence in everyday life, but they valued the continuation of their lives more than those of their soon-to-be deceased friends. …show more content…
In the briefly aforementioned Alexander Pearce case, hunger played the predominant role in Pearce’s murderous tendencies.
While we all refuse to believe that we could end someone else’s life, we cannot artificially place ourselves in that situation. Had we been in such a situation, we would nevermore think the same way about hunger and the experiences we would not wish to think of thereafter. As previously mentioned, we are incapable of replicating these events, thus, “No man knows what hunger will make him
do.”
Empathy is brushed off to the side and survival is the lone thought running through the mind of one who is starving to death. Even though all human beings are subject to hunger at multiple points throughout their respective lives, most have access to food and a pantry or fridge, thus killing a friend or family member is a less appealing option for survival. But in cases like that of Alexander Pearce, friendship is not always an option. Cases like the Donner Party, for example, are ones of people relying on the survival instincts given to them at birth. They were forced to resort to cannibalism not by choice, but by instinct. None of them would have deprived another human being of existence in everyday life, but they valued the continuation of their lives more than those of their soon-to-be deceased friends. …show more content…
In the briefly aforementioned Alexander Pearce case, hunger played the predominant role in Pearce’s murderous tendencies.
While we all refuse to believe that we could end someone else’s life, we cannot artificially place ourselves in that situation. Had we been in such a situation, we would nevermore think the same way about hunger and the experiences we would not wish to think of thereafter. As previously mentioned, we are incapable of replicating these events, thus, “No man knows what hunger will make him
do.”