Stone Angel Essay - pride

Pride has many benefits and many downfalls. Many qualities of pride can be beneficial, to be proud of family or friends can be uplifting and can form strong bonds. But pride can also mask genuine human emotions; stop those who feel pride from showing vulnerability, or weakness. The qualities of pride itself can be complex and inconceivable, like many human qualities. Each particular emotion has diverse and opposite effects, pride for example can be a word used to describe utter happiness and fulfillment, while others can use pride to close themselves off. In the book Stone Angel, written by the well known author Margaret Laurence, pride is often portrayed as a negative quality. It is used as a shield, a protection from pain and loss. When pride is allowed to take over, people may use it in order to uphold a certain appearance. People who allow their pride to create an image they must upload, it inevitably isolates them from other which enables them to revive their lost sense of humanity. Secondly, some people are too proud to show femininity, they associate it with weakness. Their inability to be a caring and compassionate individual causes them to lose those closest to them. Isolation from love causes them to release the repressed emotions and become liberated. Lastly, people who allow their pride to stop them from showing vulnerability cause those around them to become hardened and distant. The isolation as a result of this causes the individual to liberate themselves from the shackles of their pride and embrace their true self. Those who allow pride to be a hindrance from embracing their true self, consequently alienate themselves from the world around them. This isolation allows for an awakening, and in turn causes them to realize the faults in their actions.

When pride is allowed to take over, people may use it in order to uphold a certain appearance. People who allow their pride to become overbearing to the point where a certain image must be upheld,

Cited: aurence, Margaret. The Stone Angel. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 1988.