Pride in 2 Works of Fiction

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, and pride is often seen in tragedy as the fatal flaw of a character. Such is the case for Achilles or Oedipus, pride prevents them from behaving as they should and leads to downfall. Pride is often a critical element in fiction, with characters committing the sin of pride and with pride being one of the social sins criticized by the author. This is apparent in both Daisy Miller by Henry James and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. In the first, pride causes a group of people to make assumptions about a young woman and to treat her as inferior because she does not measure up to their elevated and false view of themselves. In the second, pride is shown to keep two people apart who have feelings for one another and who have more in common than otherwise.

The social comedy of Jane Austen, as seen in Pride and Prejudice, is infused with a moral purpose. The reality of the characters is heightened by their foibles and by the foolishness in which they indulge. This is presented against the backdrop of the accepted norms of society, and there is irony in the difference between the social norms the characters think they uphold and their real behavior, often at odds with what society requires. These differences are not great: Austen's characters do not stray far from the acceptable social path. Indeed, it is often that they seem to adhere to it too closely, making the social graces into a fetish. There is a level at which these socia

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protagonists, is an American visiting Europe. For James, Europe is a corrupting influence, a society that may be ancient by comparison but that has therefore had longer to become decadent and corrupt. Daisy is a particularly good example of the free, open, and even naive American whose freshness and honesty seem out of place in European society. The aristocratic people she meets are all suspicious of her and her demeanor, believing that she is in some way fooling them when in fact they are more likely to put on a social face to hide the truth from the rest of the world. This is a society that has created a body of rules of behavior which makes that behavior artificial, and people are judged not by who they are but by how well they follow the rules. Daisy is the center of the novel: "As an American girl she was a recognizable figure, the question was the evaluation and composition of that American girl" (Allen 51). Daisy contrasts with other, more suspicious American women who seem to resent her open nature as much as they have a concern for her safety: "All the ladies who condemn Daisy for going about Rome unchaperoned with Mr. Giovanelli are Americans. Perhaps an uneasy sense of social inferiority to Italian noble famil

Category: Literature - P