A theme that stretches through a large variety of stories is self-preservation. Self-preservation is the protection of oneself from harm, death or any force that seeks out one's downfall, especially regarded as a basic instinct in human beings and animals. Three stories that the theme touches on is Streetcar named Desire, Hamlet, Night and The Metamorphosis. In these stories are characters who are put up against despicable enemies who seek to take away or destroy all that they have been building towards. These characters try to protect the things that they hold dear to them by any means necessary.

In the Streetcar named Desire, Stanley enjoys his life with his wife and friends but all of that is threatened when his wife's sister, …show more content…
After killing his brother, Claudius becomes the new king of Denmark. He pretends to mourn his brothers death with his family in order to gain the trust of Hamlet and his people. Soon after Claudius becomes king, he marries he brother's wife, Gertrude. In act 1 scene 2, Hamlet is infuriated by the marriage of Claudius and his mother and says, "Frailty thy name is woman." A quote which says that women are weak. He says such a thing because not only is Gertrude his father's wife but they had also gotten married only a month after the death of Hamlet's father. While mourning his father's death, Hamlet is approached by two of his friends who have claimed to see the ghost of Hamlet's father. After learning of this, Hamlet began to search for the ghost and successfully found it. The ghost of the previous king tells Hamlet that Claudius has murdered him. He tells Hamlet how everything happened from that day on, Hamlet begins to plot the downfall of his uncle. He begins to investigate into the murder by indirectly asking his uncle …show more content…
Elie Wiesel is one of the very few people who successfully managed to survive the Holocaust. At the peak of his suffrage, he had been with his father who had guided him through most of the things that they unfortunately had to go through. Elie's other family members had either been separated from him or executed at the beginning of the Holocaust. His father meant everything to him, seeing as how he was the only family that Elie had left. Elie and his father, along with all of the other Jews, had to fight endlessly in order to preserve their lives. The German soldiers had created