Hubris

Hubris Exaggerated pride or self confidence." This word has its origins from the Greek word hybris. In modern times the word hubris is often used in a negative sense but that has not always been the case. In ancient Greece, especially during the classical period, hubris was an indictment against the accused person and was by definition an

The error of judgment "through which the fortunes of the hero of a tragedy are reversed." "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 who is overly confident or ambitious offends the gods. Therefore, they torture him with unfortunate events that 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 leads 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.

External Reading

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris definition of hubris
• http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hubris definition of hubris