Hubris

Excessive pride. A concept introduced in Greece, Holman and Harmon state that it is the "overweening pride or insolence that results in the misfortune of the protagonist of a tragedy" (250). Humans who suffer from hubris often believe that they can accomplish more than the universe itself will allow. Roger Fowler defines hubris as "a man's denial of his own mortality" (198). Indeed it seems that the only way for a person to obtain such pride is to lose all sense of fear for his own wellbeing. After all, if a person has no fear at all, then he may have a perfect pride in himself, and in some ways, may even believe that he is perfect. Baldick asserts that "hubris is the Greek word for 'insolence' or 'affront'," often times making it "the pride that comes before the fall" (260). Even though an overpowering sense of pride is healthy for one's self esteem, others might consider such pride insolence, or a negative trait.

The error of judgement "through which the fortunes of the hero of a tragedy are reversed" (Holman 217). "Aristotle attributes hamartia (a tragic flaw or shortcoming) to the tragic hero" (Barnett-Berman-Burto 112). This "tragic hero ought to be a man whose misfortune comes to him, not through vice or depravity, but by some error" (Cudden 301). Most tragedies end in the downfall of the hero due to his hubris. In the most famous examples, the Greek tragedies, a man that was overly confident or ambitious would offend the gods. Therefore, they would torture him with unfortunate events that would eventually lead to his demise. According to Holman, hubris is what "leads the protagonist to break a moral law or ignore a divine warning with calamitous results" (226). For example, in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth takes matters into his own hands after the first of the witches' three prophecies comes true. With the strong urging of his wife, he breaks a moral law when he decides to murder King Duncan in his quest to attain the crown. Little does he know, he is starting the chain of events, revealing his transition from good to evil, that ultimately lead to his downfall. In the case of "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, the man, believed to be a chechaquo, ignores the advice of others, including the "old-timer at Sulfur Creek," and relies on himself to reach a Yukon camp following a less-traveled path in temperatures significantly below freezing. At the story's end, the man dies as a result of his ignorance and his hubris.

Works Cited

• Baldick, Chris. from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 260 p. [1]
• Barnett,Sylvan, Morton Berman, and William Burto. A Dictionairy of Literary, Dramatic, and Cinematic Terms. 2nd ed. Little, Brown and Company(Inc.) 1971.
• Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms. Revised ed. Penguin Books, 1979.
• Fowler,Roger ed.A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms. Rouletage & Kegan Paul Ltd. 1973.
• Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 9th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.
• Holman, C. Hugh. A Handbook to Literature. Ed. Addison Hibbard and William F. Thrall. Revised ed. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1960.