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What Is The Theme Of Pride In Heroes Gods And Monsters Of The Greek Myths

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During the infamous 2009 VMA’s, 32-year-old Musician Kanye West jumped onto the stage and embarrassed 19-year-old Taylor Swift, proclaiming Swift did not deserve the award bestowed to her. West’s ego and pride drove him to humiliate the young girl. Eventually, the musician lost the support of many devotees, and it marked the beginning of many more outbursts that contributed to his poor reputation. West’s hubris destroyed him. Possessing an extensive amount of pride leads to self-destruction. Similarly, when the characters in Bernard Evslin’s novel Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths demonstrate pride, it leads to deposition. The myths in this anthology suggest pride is more a force of destruction than for good. The curse of hubris …show more content…

Expressing pride results in the price of death. Phaethon allows pride to overtake him, resulting in his death. Having no evidence of driving the sun chariot, Phaethon wants to show Epaphus that it truly is him and tells himself, “Apollo said not to come too close to earth, but how will he know? And I won’t stay too long–just dip down toward our own village and circle his roof three times” (71). The naive boy takes pride in managing to drive the sun chariot, encouraging him to drive closer to his village. Instead of paying heed to Apollo’s directions, Phaethon destroys his village and kills himself. Similar to the tragic story of Phaethon is the tale of Arachne. Realizing she has lost to Athene, Arachne commits suicide, admitting her defeat and wrongful boasts. Having been praised greatly, Arachne begins to eulogize herself “I, I am the greatest weaver in all the world. The greatest since the world began, no doubt. In fact, I can weave better than Athene herself” (10). Arachne’s pride makes her believe she is by far a superior weaver than Athene. After seeing how wrong she is, she commits suicide to avoid Athene’s penalizement. The consequences of Arachne and Phaethon’s pride, physically destroyed them. Furthermore, Phaethon and Arachne are victims of pride’s fate of

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