Pride Goes Before A Fall Essay

In a bid to exemplify the notions statement, rob goes before a fall, Alice Walker, Joyce Carol Oates and crapper Updike draw on their main characters Dee, Connie, and Sammy in their stories Every day Use, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? and A&P respectively. Dee, Connie and Sammy are an example of how the notion of pride is shown in various ways and how as their pride reaches its peak, they fall. Dee shows her pride in her self centered personality that causes her to lose her gustatory modality for her beat and her sister Maggie, and causes her to abandon her inheritance and become distant.Connie, in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? shows pride in her overconfidence that leads her to act impetuously causing her to lose her personal safety. Sammy, in A&P shows pride by simply quitting his job in response to what he views to be an unacceptable behavior by his boss, and wishes to view the attention of girls that merely bang him. The Preoccupation with pride t hat these characters have causes them to eventually fall. Dees egocentrism leads her to become unappreciative to both her family and her heritage.Dee reveals her true personality when she responds to her mother for the reason she wants to take the quilts rather of her sister in the credit entry, Hang them, she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts(Walker 375). This quotation shows moment when Mamas attitude changes in the story. Before it, she was amenable to Dee and had much respect for her. After, she realizes that Dee will never be grateful to her or even able to understand that there are other people in this world besides herself.Dees pride is shown in her eagerness to take the quilts that are originally for Maggie She ignores her sisters feelings and her mothers will. She fakes love for her mothers old things because they are expensive, not because she enjoys the history and is proud of her heritage. The pride causes Dee to lose her appreciation for he r mother, sister, and heritage and at the identical time she loses her mother appreciation for her. Maybe if she did not respond to her mothers question by simply hanging the quilts, her mother would have given them to her.However, her selfish desires of getting whatsoever she wants leads her to loose her mothers respect. Connies self assertiveness ended by her loosing her safety. Connie shows her pride in her personal thought as the narrative states, in truth Connie thought that her mother preferred her to June because she was prettier(Oates 53). Connies overconfidence of her self comes from her beauty. She finds her self to be a beautiful offspring girl who is a point of stakes among the boys.As a result of herself, she builds up her personality with that overconfidence, while at the same time building her pride up. As soon as her pride is at its maximum level, she acts in an impetuous way ignoring the outcomes of her actions, this can be seen through the quotation, It was a car she didnt know she whispered Christ, Christ, wondering how spoiled she looked she went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly, then hung out the screen door, her bare toes curling down off the step(Oates 54). This quotation shows Connies pride and how her pride causes her to fall.Connies response when she finds a stranger in her driveway by wondering how she looks reveals that her pride takes value over her safety, while the normal thoughts that any body can rally about when he finds a stranger entering his driveway is thinking about his safety, Connie is only concerned with her beauty. Connies overconfidence pushes her to approach the door which is the commencement of her fall. Connie lives in her small safe life of teenagers, not taking into consideration the outside wild life that she approaches blindly.At the time she decided to open the door, Connie the teenager and the young adult is blended together. Connie is in a stage of maturation She decides to approach the door for the stranger which is the teenager side of her mind and at the same time she approaches it slowly which is the young adult side of her character. Her action to hang out the screen door is the time when Connie is completely mature and considered a young adult. At this moment, Connie cannot go back to the level of maturity she had when she was a teenager. Connie starts the fall.Connies overconfidence causes her to portray an imaginary photo of how the world is and she acts from this perspective which ultimately ends her losing her self security. Sammy resigning his job shows pride, moreover renders him inferior in society. Sammy shows pride in the way he reacts to his boss, Mr. Lengel. The way he treats the girls is shown in the quotation, The girls whod blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say I quit to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping theyll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero(Updike 87).The quotation shows the girls reaction to Mr. Lengels wo rds. They want to go out of the store as quick as they can. It also shows Sammys rashness in thoughts and making decisions by stating that he quits in a quick manner. Quitting to Sammy is a way that he shows pride and is a way to grab the girls attention. He is showing that he supports them, and he thinks that they will consider him their hero. Sammy also shows hesitation that his action may attract the girls attention. He hopes that by quitting, his proud actions will grab their attention.However, he comes out of the store and he does not find any body waiting for him. As the narrator states, I look around for the girls, but theyre gone I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter(Updike 88). At this moment, Sammy realizes his fall. This fall can be viewed in cardinal perspectives. The first perspective is a superficial one because he thought that the girls would be impressed and would be waiting for him which they didnt. The second is when he realized that he quit hi s only job and that world will be hard to him, which is something that is hard to handle.