Pride in The Black Monk by Andrey Kovrin - 667 Words

Humans all experience pride in their life, both in the negative and the positive sense. Pride can mean being proud of your work; positive, or having an inordinately high opinion of yourself; negative. While Andrey in â€Å"The Black Monk† and Father Gonzaga demonstrate a negative sense of pride, Rilke recommends a positive sense of pride in ones own work. Each of these people feels pride, but for some it is a pride in accomplishment while for others it is a sense of aloofness. Andrey Kovrin in â€Å"The Black Monk† feels an inordinate sense of pride for his accomplishments. Andreys ego is so large that he is borderline megalomaniac and his hubris reaches a point where it is causing him to hallucinate. As a result of this, he is put on a special diet to cure him of his illusions. Kovrin says of this; â€Å"Why have you cured me?... All this will reduce me at last to idiocy... I saw hallucinations, but what harm did that do to anyone?† (Chekhov, 14) Andrey is so wr apped up in his pride that he refuses to accept that he is mentally ill. His ego is damaging because it blinds him from recognizing his mental condition. Although not in such an extreme, all people experience pride. One damaging effect of excessive pride is the refusal to accept help. Although Andrey accepted help from his wife and father, many people refuse this aid which can cause disastrous effects. While there is always the stereotypical example of men refusing to ask directions, both sexes are guilty of refusing medical