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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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A main concept in the play Antigone is pride. In class, we discussed the topic of pride and watched a Ted Talk along with it about the fear of being wrong. It relates to King Kreon because as a leader, he wanted to be powerful and make his own decisions. This turned for the worse however, when the decision he made was selfish and went against the people’s beliefs. Kreon’s son Haimon warned him before the execution of Antigone that it was not what

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Shelsea Lopez-Massella Contrast in the Usage of Pride within the Biblical text and Homeric Epic Differing texts, the Odyssey and the Hebrew Bible serve to exemplify how “pride” is a term whose definition can be a spectrum with opposing ends rather than a solid meaning. As a word, it is able to connote a definition ranging from narcissism and self-adsorption, to self-assurance and respect for one’s reputation. Pride is an essential aspect of the Greek “hero”, being a characteristic that separates the common man from one of noble lineage and authority. Contrasting to the Homeric use of pride in heroism, the biblical use of the trait is always that of an example of behavior or character that is best averted rather than embraced; as it is a

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The burial of Polyneices is viewed nobly, yet Antigone is not faultless in that act. One of Antigone’s largest mistakes is that she burns bridges with those that care about her. Pleading with Antigone, Ismene laments “why would I care to live when you are gone?” (548). Antigone dismisses this heartfelt plea by deferring Ismene to Creon, thus isolating herself from her only kin.

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In Anthony Horowitz's retold version of The Spinning Contest, Arachne’s behaviour did not justify Athena’s punishment. Arachne won the spinning contest. Both Athena and her agreed that Arachne's piece, “The Love of the Gods”, was spun perfectly, meaning she won fairly. This would lead to the conclusion that prior to turning her into a spider, Athena attempted to kill Arachne for merely bragging. In addition, Athena tortured Arachne in the plain sight of the general public.

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/“Listen,” she cried, “I challenge Minerva /“To weave better than I weave, /And if she wins /Let her do whatever she wants with me, /I shan’t care.” (Arachne 26-34) Arachne is challenging the goddess of weaving just to see who is better and she puts everything at risk and anything she possesses. " Minerva tore from the loom /That gallery of divine indiscretions

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406 Words | 2 Pages

Pride can be one of man's strongest qualities. In Sophocles' play, Antigone, the Theme of pride becomes the cause for destruction for both Creon and Antigone in the play.. Creon's Pride blinds him to the injustice he commits against Antigone and the gods. Antigone's pride leaves her no choice but to be killed because of her beliefs. They Both automatically surrender to their own hubris and demonstrate how uncontrolled pride leads to personal downfalls and destruction in Antigone.

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1786 Words | 8 Pages

In the play, Antigone, daughter of Oedipus learns about the death of her two brothers (Eteocles and Polynices).Creon, the new king of Thebes passed a decree to the city on the burial of the two brothers. In the decree, Creon declares that Eteocles body should be buried with honor and fame for his courage of saving the city from the enemy. Whiles Polynices body is left unburied and rotting for beasts to feed on because he came to destroy the city and enslave the people. Antigone defies Creon 's decree, buries Polynices body and gets caught. Creon imprisons her

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In the classic play by Sophocles, Antigone is a tragic story of the bold Antigone who defied her uncle, King Creonʻs, edict by burying her brother, Polyneices, who died attacking the city of Thebes, trying to take the power away from their brother, Eteocles, who refused to share the throne with Polyneices. Even though Antigone knew that going against Creon and burying her brother would not end well for her, she still choose to risk her life to do what is right. After being caught breaking the law, Antigone is appointed to be locked away, isolated in a cave until she dies, but she hangs herself at the end. At the same time, things for Creon are not looking good, as everyone around him seems to be against him in his decision for punishing Antigone. Everyone Creon cares about kills themselves from a curse that is put on Creon for not following the Godsʻ laws.

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Luke Hinson Ms.DeHorn English 9 April 19, 2023 Antigone Essay Power of Pride The power of pride will consume the person with it and affect them in the end no matter the circumstances. In the play “Antigone”, the king, Kreon, is a very sexist, arrogant, and selfish person. King Kreon has a niece, Antigone, who goes against most of Kreon’s laws. Kreon puts the law's before the Gods compared to Antigone who puts the Gods before the law.

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When people defend what they believe in or who they love that is sacrifice. In order to be certain that her two brothers she loved had a proper burial and that their souls could rest, Antigone sacrificed her life. Regardless of the potential outcome; even if that means that she was going to have to challenge her uncle (King Creon), she plans on pursuing her quest. Polynices and Eteocles killed each other in battle for control over Thebes, leaving the city to the new King, Creon Jocasta’s brother and Antigone’s uncle. Because of the actions that Polynices took during the war, Creon labels him a traitor and halts any burial process, leaving his body for the animals (222-234).

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First, pride can lead to bad things because Cyclops had a lot of pride and Prometheus was punished for giving people fire in the punishment was chained to the mountain and Zeus sent vultures to rip out his organs. The Cyclops killed two people and got drunk. He got his eye poked out and he was very mad. This shows that Prometheus and the Cyclops had pride because he fought the Cyclops and he

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From world wars to present day national elections, pride can always be connected to many appalling, life-changing issues. Pride has always either been negative or positive, and it has been around forever. In the epic play Antigone, Sophocles demonstrates how Creon’s hubris allows for the downfall of himself and the killing of his family. Creon’s fatal flaw is his hubris. Creon not only loses his family, he also loses the trust of his people.

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577 Words | 3 Pages

Through the use of characterization, conflict, and imagery, both mythical protagonists, Phaethon and Icarus demonstrate a shared lesson that a prideful disregard of the warnings from those who are older and wiser can quickly lead to disastrous consequences. Both authors show not to be prideful through the character trait of pride that Icarus and Phaethon share. Phaethon, from “Phaethon” shows his pride when he thinks “How many people are watching me, me, me…? But I’m too small to see.” right before ordered the horses to go down.

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In the epic poem, the Iliad written by Homer, several characters taking part in the warfare between the Achaeans and the Trojans are portrayed as embodying the heroic code of courage, physical strength, leadership, arete of value of honour, and the acceptance of fate. The heroic code is illustrated by the actions of the Trojan prince, Hector and the Achaeans strongest warrior, Achilles. Both of these characters display the Greek’s image of a hero, and can also let the reader discern what the society admires, looks up to and aspires to in its heroes. There are also characters who fail to be heroic, such as the Trojan “vivid and beautiful” prince, Paris. These characters in the Iliad illustrate the qualities that Ancient Greek society values.

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958 Words | 4 Pages

The drama Antigone places the culture of Greece on display by showcasing the many values that this culture held in reverence, including remaining loyal to family, honoring the dead, and honoring the gods. In Sophocles’ renowned drama entitled Antigone, one of the main values that Antigone chooses to honor is loyalty to family, even when that means that she has to forgo loyalty to her city and community. Even though her uncle the king, Kreon, forbade anyone to bury Polyneikes’ body because he had been on the opposing side in the battle, Antigone felt a duty to her brother to bury him. When speaking with her sister, Antigone says that Kreon’s command “…threatens our loved ones / as if they were our enemies” (Antigone 14-15).

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