Consequences of Excessive Pride Pride is not a bad attribute to have, it is actually very important. One definition for pride is: A sense of one's own proper dignity or value; self-respect. Self respect is a very good quality to have, however, there’s such thing as too much of a good thing. This is especially the case if you are a hero in a Greek play that has too much pride. Pride is the most central flaw in Greek tragedy, even in heroes. In the plays “Antigone” and “The Odyssey”, Antigone’s and
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an allegory. Hawthorne’s moral story is told through the perversion of a religious leader, Goodman Brown. Goodman is a Puritan minister who lets his excessive pride interfere with his relations with the community after he meets with the devil. The result is that Goodman lives the rest of his life in exile within his own community. "Young Goodman Brown" begins when Faith, Brown's wife, asks him not to go on an "errand". Goodman Brown says to his
Creon The Tragic Hero of Sophocles Antigone Every Greek tragedy must have a tragic hero. In Sophocle’s play, Antigone, the most tragic hero is Creon. He is an essentially good man of high position who takes pride in his role as king. He possesses the tragic flaws of excessive pride and an oversized ego. This causes the tragic reversal that leads to his emotional ruin and eventual remorse and repentance. As King of Thebes, Creon is forced to make difficult decisions. As a new ruler, he feels
The Crucible - Pride In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, both pride and excessive pride influence the characters throughout the play. Pride is a sense of one's dignity and worth. Excessive pride is being overly confident of one's own self worth. Throughout, pride influences the actions, reactions, and emotions of the characters in such ways to establish the outcome of the story. Three characters are impelled by their pride. Hale, who takes pride in his ability to detect witchcraft; Elizabeth
the Green Knight in riding thus into Arthur's court, is later shown to be due to the enchantment put on him by Morgan Le Faye. The Green Knight's confidence and his challenges to the court create a caricature of the bravery of knighthood and excessive pride is indeed the excess that this cautionary tale warns against. Sir Gawain meets the challenge but his actions show that even the bravest knight must not be too proud or sure of himself. The Green Knight's Challenge! The scene begins with
Goodman Brown’s excessive pride. This excessive pride interferes with the relationship of his wife Faith and the community, which ultimately causes Young Goodman Brown’s downfall. “Young Goodman Brown” sets up his journey that his wife asks him to “pr’y thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in his own bed to-night” (Hawthorne 614). However, Goodman Brown tells Faith “of all nights in the year, this one night must tarry away from thee” (614). The first sign of excessive pride is when Goodman
face or pride can. Goodman let his excessive pride in himself destroy his relationship with his wife and community, and his ability to worship God. Goodman Brown goes into the woods to meet with the devil, therefore, he is questioning his faith from the start. He steps away from his faith for a short period of time to go on his journey saying that, “After this one night, I’ll cling to her (Faith) skirts and follow her to Heaven” (Hawthorne 1). This is one example where Goodman’s excessive pride comes
of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s tragic flaw is his need to be remembered. In the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, Beowulf also has a tragic flaw, excessive pride and the search for fame, which ultimately leads to his demise. Beowulf was a highly skilled and great fighter, but because of his over-confidence in himself the fire-breathing dragon kills him. Beowulf’s excessive pride is evident from the very beginning of the epic. He is almost always boasting about himself to one person or the other. In the first
complex life. The Greek hero is strong and mighty while his wit and intelligence are highly valued. In the Greek tragedy, the hero struggles to avoid many flaws. Among these flaws are ambition, foolishness, stubbornness, and hubris-the excessive component of pride. He must overcome his predestined fate-a task which is impossible. From the beginning of the tale, it is already clear that the hero will ultimately fail with the only way out being death. In Oedipus, the hero is already confronted with
tragedy could have been prevented if it had not been for Creon's pitiful mistakes. Creon's character possesses an infinite number of glitches in his personality, but his excessive pride was the root of his problems. His pride leads him to make accusations, before he considers the wise advice of others. Creon's pride also fills him not just as a king superior to the Gods, but also a man superior to women. The issue of Antigone being condemned to die becomes more than just a person who disobeys
greatest satirist in the history of English literature, and is without question the most controversial. Infuriated by the moral degradation of society in the eighteenth century, Swift wrote a plethora of bitter pieces attacking man's excessive pride, and the critical reception has been one of very mixed reviews. While few question Swift's skill as a satirist, his savage, merciless attacks on the foibles of mankind have led more than one critic to level negative accusations against
Pride in Oedipus and Othello In literature, the tragic heroes Oedipus and Othello allow the pride they have to cause their own demise by putting too much emphasis on the lives they have created for themselves. Oedipus, who blinds himself after finding out he has killed his birth father and married his birth mother, refuses to believe he has truly fulfilled his fate because he is so proud of what he has accomplished since he left Corinth. Othello demonstrates his pride by believing that the people
Hubris in Antigone and Oedipus The idea of hubris is monumental in a plethora of Greek mythological works. In many ways the excessive pride of certain characters fuels their own destruction. This is certainly true with respect to the characters of Pentheus, Antigone, and Oedipus. All three of these characters demonstrate, through their actions, various degrees of arrogance that seem to undercut the traditional role of the Gods, and thus largely contribute to their downfall. However, it should
is his excessive arrogance. One way this flaw is displayed is Oedipus' repeated use of the pronoun "I". In lines sixty seven through eighty alone, Oedipus uses the word "I" eight times, projecting his haughty personality. "I have found one helpful course, and that I have taken: I have sent Creon…to Delphi…" states Oedipus as he describes what action he has taken to help the people of Thebes recover from there ill state (70-73). This quote is just one of the many that exhibit Oedipus' pride through
to the seventeenth- century Dutch observer, the paintings conveyed the theme of vanitas: objects that symbolized the vanity of worldly things and the brevity of life. The skull and bones refer to death, the books and writing instruments to excessive pride through learning, and the fragile glass goblet of wine to temporary pleasure. A golden cup on its side would suggest immoderate wealth, and a man smoking a pipe displays idleness. The obsessive layering of oil paints by the artists was their
tragic hero because he was a champion of the people, but it was his hubris that led to his death. Caesar was a great leader and well-loved by Romans, but his arrogance made the people who were close to him mad and jealous of him. It was Caesars excessive pride that led directly to his death. We see evidence throughout the play through the dialogue and events that this is true. Firstly, Caesar was a great leader and adored by his subjects. At the opening of the play, all of the Romans in the streets
-(Corinthians 25-28) Augustine believed that the pursuit of wisdom without recognizing the importance and the power of God was useless. In his view it was a sin for a man to have that much pride and arrogance about his own intellect. Augustine recalled that as a very young man he himself succumbed to excessive pride. He fervently desired the recognition and prestige that came with being an accomplished rhetorician. He “squandered the brains [God] gave [him] on foolish delusions.” (I, 37) Augustine considered
same place as it was the night before and he no longer feels at home. Whether his experiences were real or not, his faith is gone and he feels as though he is the only pure one. He suffers tremendous guilt and discomfort and trusts no one. His excessive pride is evident when he takes a child away from a blessing given by Goody Cloyse, his former catechism teacher, as if he were taking the child “from the fiend himself.” (Hawthorne, pg.276) His distrust and resentment towards his townsmen is apparent
the classic tragic hero, hubris, is very similar to Hotspur's need for honor. While hubris is excessive pride, the quest for honor can be viewed as the quest ( of the proud ) to get more titles and accolades, more things to be proud of. In addition, Hubris and honor drive their victims to ultimate failure in a similar manner: Oedipus is driven to find out the truth about his origins by his own pride just as Hotspur is driven by his need for honor to fight against the odds. Each fault is as inevitably
O'Connor portrays two varieties of sinners who possess either excessive pride or aggressive evil traits. The price of redemption is high. O'Connor violently shocks her characters, illuminates their shortcomings, and prepares them for redemption as seen in: "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Revelation," "The River," and "The Lame Shall Enter First." Walters reasons, "The instruction of pride through lessons of humility is, in each story, the means by which