Optimism In The Martian

As if being stranded on earth was bad enough, imagine being stuck on Mars with limited supplies and you were pronounced dead. What if you just gave up, and stopped trying to rescue yourself? One always runs into hopeless situations where they must remain calm, never give up, and continue to work towards a better future. By examining Mark Weir’s novel The Martian, one can see that perseverance, optimism, and empathy are human traits which will make our society prosper. These traits illustrate hope in mankind in the society of the story.

Perseverance is a key human trait that will make society prosper. To continue to pursue a course of action, with a purpose or goal in mind, despite the onslaught of endless challenges, obstacles, or discouragements,

Optimism is to be cheerful, have hope, and confidence. In the most hopeless situations, optimism gives hope, and makes the impossible seem somewhat possible. Humans are social creatures and require interaction, Watney was able to bide his time by keeping himself busy, but when he finished he started to feel depressed. After Watney fully established his farm on Mars he started to feel homesick and tried to cheer himself up. He declared himself, “The best botanist on the planet", and the man who colonised Mars," They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially ‘colonised’ it. So, technically, I colonised Mars. In your face Neil Armstrong!”(Weir 146-147). This quote demonstrates that Watney is a very optimistic individual, even when he is stuck on Mars, and is possibly going to die. Instead of being depressed and giving up hope, he is optimistic. On a higher level, one can see that in this example, Watney represents society and humanity. If society is optimistic, it will give hope to any situation, and makes society prosper. This is because optimism allows for every situation to seem possible, allows tolerance, allows humans to bond and connect with each other, and provokes happiness. Instead of seeing failure, optimistic people see it as a new opportunity. The irony of Mark Watney being stuck on Mars, was that he was mostly cheerful and happy. One can see

Empathy is to be able to understand and act according to the feelings of another. In Andy Weir’s The Martian, the main protagonist is saved by the collective effort of millions of empathetic humans. This can be observed when the fictional NASA spends millions to save Watney, he asks himself, “Why bother … They did it because every human has a basic instinct to help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but it’s true. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by those who do. And because of that, I had billions of people on my side”(Weir 368-369). As Watney stated, humans have a basic instinct to help each other out, which is empathy, and they worked to save Watney, because of empathy, they understood how he felt and worked so diligently to save him because they could put themselves in his shoes. Empathy bonded society together, and it was the combined effort of many to save his life. Proving that, if humans work together, almost anything is possible, and society will prosper. By examining the empathy exhibited by society, towards Watney, one can see that humans are not cruel emotionless beasts, and if humans work together, society is given hope and man will