Pride
Any great accomplishment can make someone feel proud about their work. It makes one feel good; it raises a person's spirits. "No question, pride has its good points." (The Toronto Star, Nov 1999) Then again, there are also the bad points of pride one must consider, before being proud. Pride can deceive a person into being ambitious, and make them strive for something that is not rightfully theirs. Both Macbeth and Willy encountered this problem. Pride can also cause a bad relationship with the people one loves most. For Macbeth and Willy, their relationships with their families were burdened as a consequence of this pride. Pride can lead to much worse things; it can put a person in a position to be their ultimate cause of their death, and such was the fate for Willy Loman and Macbeth. "It's an excess of pride that buys you one-way, economy coach passage to the fires of hell." (The Toronto Star, Nov 1999) In the play Macbeth and Death of a Salesman, both Macbeth and Willy are seen as tragic heroes due to their pride, as seen in these three situations. First, both characters' pride swindled them into believing they could be so much more than they were meant to be, it made them ambitious. In any monarchial co
Finally, the pride of both characters, Macbeth and Willy, was the cause of their deaths. Macbeth's pride made him feel that he was invincible, when he really was not. He stayed to fight an entire army by himself, instead of fleeing. He believed that "Our castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn." (Macbeth, Act 5, Sc. 5, ll. 2-3) This stupid act almost ensures Macbeth's death. Willy's problems on the other hand were monetary. "Willy Loman is a man whose perspective is so clouded by pride that he would rather maintain the false appearance of success than accept repeated offers of [job offers] from his neighbour [Charley]." (The Toronto Star, Nov 1999) This pride forced Willy to take a coward's way out. He believed if he killed himself, his twenty thousand-dollar life insurance policy would be paid out to his family. He foresaw his son Biff being able to do something with his life if he had that money. "Can you imagine that magnificence with twenty thousand dollars in his pocket?" (Death of a Salesman, Pg.135) Soon after saying this, he killed himself in a car accident. Macbeth's suicide is just as ridiculously unnecessary, as he stayed to fight Macduff to the death; meanwhile his pride blinded him from the fact that Macduff was the one man that could kill him. He cried out "Lay on Macduff, and damned to him that first cries 'Hold, enough!'" (Macbeth, Act 5, Sc. 8, ll. 33-34) For both characters, their pride was ultimately the cause of their deaths. "The deadliest of the seven deadlies." (The Toronto Star, Nov 1999) holds very true in the situations of Macbeth and Willy. For both, their pride tricked them into ambition. It also placed stress on their relationships with their families. Thes
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Approximate Word count = 1161
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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