Almost everyone has hero. Whether it is Superman or Batman or something simple such as a brother or a firefighter, a lot of people have someone they admire and look up to. In Andy Weir’s The Martian, that is exactly what the whole world thinks of Mark Watney. Watney is an astronaut who is left alone on Mars by complete accident. He must find a way to communicate with NASA back on Earth and come up with a plan to survive on completely foreign soil while doing so. Weir sets his character in a completely unfavorable condition and the readers are invited to follow Watney through his troubles and root for him until the end. Weir tries to make his novel as believable as possible, incorporating enough realism to please the intense sci-fi critics and relate to casual readers. In this novel, Watney was not the only person involved in his survival. His work ethic and optimism is what keeps him alive for the majority of the time but it is not what saved him in the end. What eventually gets him home is almost everyone’s subconscious urge to help others, as claimed in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Almost the whole world pulled together to support him and make sure he got home alive and he would not have lived without the perseverance and positivity of the human race on Earth. Andy Weir overcomes obstacles to create a modern, relatable hero who represents Man and his…show more content… Maslow wanted to understand what motivates people and believed they had unconscious desires. He stated that there are five levels of the hierarchy; psychological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization (McLeod). Maslow claimed that people are motivated to achieve certain things and once they are achieved, they can move on to the next level. He also believed that life experiences and cause an individual to fluctuate through the different levels (McLeod). Mark Watney seems to rise and fall between levels throughout The
