The Glass Castle By Jeanette Wall: Authentic Pride
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“Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.” – Joyce Meyer Many people will often agree with Christian author and speaker, Joyce Meyer because there are many cases when pride will often affect the decisions people make. Researchers and scientists are often perplexed thinking about pride, which is an extremely intricate emotion. Pride is a very complex emotion that conceals behind two different meanings unlike the forthright feelings of fear and disgust. Instead of seeing pride as a step towards arrogance ad haughtiness, have anyone ever thought to encourage…show more content… Based on a psychological way of speaking, there are two types of pride: authentic pride and hubristic pride. Authentic pride is when people “feel good about [themselves], confident, and productive” (Winch). Not only is it just confidence or productivity but it also is a self-satisfaction of one’s accomplishments and actions. It plays a strong factor in individuality as well. For example, in the text The Glass Castle, Jeanette Wall’s mother, Rose Mary Walls, was very proud woman and when offered help from her daughter, Jeanette Walls, to live a better life, she states, “You want me to change my life? I’m fine. You’re the one who needs help” (Walls 5). Even through tough times, she holds onto her pride and stays strong as an individual. On the other hand, Hubristic pride “tends to involve egotism and arrogance, and is related to socially undesirable traits such as disagreeable, aggressive, having low or brittle self-esteem-and being prone to shame” (Winch). People with hubristic pride will generally think highly of themselves and have an extremely high self-esteem where their state of mind will be clouded from seeing their faults and…show more content… Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, and Nietzsche, a German philosopher, both came to a conclusion that a man who hold pride is someone who can see himself worthy of many great things in the future. They defined it as an extremely valuable quality. Aristotle explains how pride makes people become more powerful and increases their chances of becoming more successful. Based on supportive evidences, people have been proven to be more likely to reach their goals with positive thoughts about their abilities and strong motivation. In The Glass Castle, Rose Mary and Rex Walls taught their children to not believe in Christmas and Santa Clause, knowing they did not have the savings to afford presents for their children. “They couldn’t afford expensive presents, and they didn’t want [them] to think we weren’t as good as other kids” (Walls 39). Although in other people’s perspective, they may assume that Rose Mary and Rex Walls are just being terrible parents and not giving their children hope; however, it is also an approach to help their children realize reality, where they are not able to obtain whatever they desire. This is a like a lesson that they would eventually have to overcome obstacles to become stronger and more successful in the future. The concept of pride in The Glass Castle can be very enlightening. Rose Mary