Examples Of Hubris In The Necklace And The Cask Of...

One is a story of revenge and murder, the other a story of greed and materialism. On the surface, the short stories appear quite different, but at their heart, a similar drive beats within the three main characters, determining their actions and altering the pathways of their lives. â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† by Edgar Allen Poe is a story of the proud Montresor, obsessed with getting revenge on the foolish Fortunato. â€Å"The Necklace† by Guy de Maupassant, is a story of a beautiful woman who felt she belonged to an upper class but was forced to live a banal, ordinary life. While the plots of these two short stories are different, the central characters all share the overarching quality of an obsessive pride— hubris. This hubris comes in many†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬ËœAnd the motto?’ ‘Nemo me impune lacessit’† (Poe 1). Simply translated, this means â€Å"no one provokes me with impunity.† The family motto indicates that pride of family honor has been a long-standing and well-guarded trait. Montresor’s ancestry and history of pride elevates his grievance against Fortunato, and evokes an attack because he dared to belittle Montresor’s honorable name. In fact, Montresor’s pride is still so great, and his remorse so little, that he continues to gasconade about his revenge fifty years after the event. The pride of his family name forces Montresor to murder Fortunato, conclusively and irreversibly directing his decisions throughout the short story. In â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado†, Montresor is not the only character who displays an overwhelming and ultimately detrimental sense of pride. Fortunato is also a very prideful man who is willing to go to great lengths to maintain his honor and reputation. For him, it is his reputation as a fine wine expert that he must defend. Fortunato’s pride overrides his common sense and is the driving force of the deadly decisions he makes throughout the story. Montresor claims to possess a bottle of the expensive and highly regarded Amontillado wine. He tells Fortunato that he has called an expert, Luchresi, to inspect the wine. Fortunato forces Montresor to take him to the vaults because he is certain that â€Å"‘[Montresor has] been imposed upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot