Theme of Pride in Literature Essay Sample

The overall theme of our semester this year has been Pride and Downfall through the Ages, and we have read many books dealing with this subject. In this essay, I will go over five books, and how they relate to our overall theme. The stories we have read are: Beowulf, David and Goliath, Frankenstein, The Help, and Hamlet. All five of these pieces of literature have either a theme of pride and the downfall of those with it, or have single characters with so much pride in themselves that they succumb because they aren’t as great as they thought they were. To get us started, I will speak about our first book we read, Beowulf, and the terrible, prideful monster that is Grendel. 

In the book Beowulf, there are many characters that have a great amount of pride, but none have as much pride, or as much of a downfall, as Grendel does. When terrorizing the Danes, Grendel beleives he is unstoppable, and kills whomst ever he pleases. He believes he is truly unstoppable, and to a point, he is. He killed and ate whoever he pleased for 12 years before Beowulf came and helped King Hrothgar’s people in Heorot, the famous mead-hall of Denmark. Grendel snuck up upon the Mead hall once again, and thought Beowulf would be easy prey. As he went to grab him, Beowulf grabbed him back, and wouldn’t let go. Grendel wouldn’t give up a good fight, because he’s too prideful to see that he’s met his match. They fight a great fight, and Beowulf, being the hero, wins. With his arm ripped off, Grendel runs back to his mommy, and dies. This was certainly a great downfall, all because of Grendel’s pride.

The next story we read was David and Goliath. This was about a tiny shepherd boy, David, and how he overcame the giant that was Goliath. This guy, like Grendel, is the definition of prideful. Goliath was the Philistine’s prized warrior, and the Israelites were told that if a man that they send can defeat Goliath, then they would stop terrorizing them. This is the start of Goliath’s pride. He knows that no one would have the guts to try and fight him, and no one does. I mean, who would, with him being over 9 feet tall and in full armor? Nonetheless, Goliath comes out into the valley, for forty days, seeing if anyone would challenge the likes of him. The only one to do so, was David, a small shepherd whose brothers’ were fighting in this war. Equipped only with a few stones and a slingshot, he goes out. Goliath taunts him, because how could he, a small child, defeat him, a mighty giant? However, with just one stone, David knocked the beast down, and cut off his head. David defeated all odds and killed the beast, and Goliath was definitely knocked down a few pegs. 

The third book that we read was Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein was probably the most prideful character in the whole book. From the very beginning, he was so prideful that he thought he could create life by reanimating  a corpse. He was so prideful that he thought he could be a god, and tried doing this by getting together the “Perfect” body parts, and stitching them together to create a person. As we all know, his experiment succeeded, but the “Monster” was so ugly that Victor ran away freaking out. He soon realized that doing this was a great mistake, and proceeded to pretty much pretend the thing didn’t exist, until it killed his brother. Then he decided that he would be the hero and try to get rid of it. The “Monster” would then cause the death of his wife, which caused Victor to chase the monster to the Arctic, where Victor died. The big lesson learned here is don’t try and play God, as you will get hurt. 

The fourth piece of literature that we read was The Help. This was my favorite story that I read, and had a lot of pride in it. This pride, like all of our other stories, doesn’t end with the prideful person dying. This person that I will be speaking on is, of course, Hilly Holbrook. Hilly took over every single person’s life in The Help, and she knew there was no way that anyone would or could stop her. Anyone who got in her way was pretty much socially exiled, like how it was with Celia, and later Skeeter. She’d throw them in prison if she could, like she did with Yule May. She thought she was on top of the world, and untouchable. We, however, find out this isn’t true, after Skeeter, with maids like Minny’s help, wrote a book about what it was like to work as a maid. This is when Hilly’s pie secret broke out, and when Hilly read this part of the book, she went off, but was shut up real quick after fear of exposure. She finally realized that she wasn’t indestructible, which is probably one of the best downfalls.

The last play we read was Hamlet, which has many points of Prideful characters. All of these characters’ pride falls yet again through death. Pretty much every character in this play is prideful, but I’m only going to speak on one. King Claudius was so prideful that he thought he could get away with anything, including murder. He Murdered King Hamlet, stole his wife, the queen, stole the crown from Prince Hamlet, and even tried to send Hamlet off to his death. He thought that he was so good that he was never going to get caught. He did, and Hamlet pretended to be crazy, just so that he could plan his revenge. That revenge, of course, just as his father’s wishes, was to kill Claudius. Hamlet succeeded, but also ended up dying himself in the meantime. In conclusion, all of the pieces of literature that we have read have had a lot of pride and its downfall, most of which ended in death.