Comparing and Contrasting the Grandmother In ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ And Mathilde in ‘The Necklace’

Comparing and Contrasting the Grandmother In ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ And Mathilde in ‘The Necklace’

Grandmother and Mathilde are protagonists in ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor and ‘The Necklace’ by Guy de Maupassant respectively. Through different settings such as the party and traveling to Florida via Tennessee, the authors use Grandmother and Mathilde to bring out the theme of pride. Through these characters, the pitfalls of pride are revealed to the reader as pride land the Grandmother and Mathilde in different problems. This essay seeks to compare and contrast Grandmother and Mathilde and make an argument about the pitfalls of pride. This will be done by paying particular attention to setting and characterization.

The most notable difference in Grandmother and Mathilde is their age. The grandmother is an older woman while Mathilde is a young woman. Notwithstanding, Grandmother and Mathilde have similar attributes since they both have pride. It is important to compare and contrast these two characters since their pride made them lead miserable lives and ultimately ended their lives. Pride is manifested in ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ through Grandmother, and Flannery O’Connor brings out the theme of pride from the beginning. The grandmother is prideful about being a lady and is preoccupied with herself and appearance. Her obsession with appearing as a lady shows that she is a prideful person.

There are many instances in ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ that show that the grandmother believes that she is better than others. For instance, the grandmother says that in her time, children were more respectful of their parents, native states, and everyone else. By making these assertions, the reader can see that the grandmother believes that her generation was more respectful and better than the generation of her grandchildren. This is prideful as she elevates herself over others. Besides elevating herself above her grandchildren, the grandmother also believes that Black children are beneath her. She uses a derogatory term to refer to the Black children. By using a disrespectful term to refer to black people, she implies that Black people are beneath her because she is white and they are black. When one believes that they are better because of their race, they could be perceived as being prideful. The grandmother would not have used a derogatory term to refer to black people if she were not prideful of her race.

Pride also goes hand in hand with egocentrism, and when one is egocentric, they are prideful. The grandmother is egocentric when she decides to tell a lie about the lovely house. She told a lie because she had selfish ambitions. She had to lie in her description of the lovely house because her selfish interests and pride guided her. Her selfishness and pride ultimately led to her death and that of her family. Mathilde Loisel is also a proud woman. She feels that she is better than the circumstances that surround her. Mathilde thought that she deserved more in life, which made her angry at the world. This is because the world did not give her what she thought she deserved.

Mathilde’s dissatisfaction with almost everything is closely connected to her being prideful. Mathilde Loise also feels that she is above her husband. She is forced to live with her husband because of her common birth. The current situation she is living in also disgusts her. Like the grandmother, she is preoccupied with her beauty, which could be seen as pride. Also, Mathilde’s pride may be preventing her from admitting that she and her husband have lost a costly necklace. Further, in spite of Mathilde’s husband telling her to wear flowers, she instead wore borrowed jewelry, which shows her pride. She says that it is mortifying for one to look poverty-stricken among rich women. This is an act of pride on Mathilde’s part because if she was not prideful, she could have listened to her husband. If she had listened to her husband, she could have avoided a lot of troubles.

The pitfalls of pride are evident in both ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ and ‘The Necklace.’ For instance, Mathilde was unable to tell the truth about her missing necklace because of pride. This is because she wanted to be perceived as wealthy. If she had let go of her pride and explained what happened and how her necklace went missing, her life could have been saved. She lived a miserable life as she worked hard to pay off loans as her pride forced her to borrow money to purchase a new necklace. The grandmother also suffered because of her pride. Since the grandmother did not want embarrassment, she decided to keep her secret. Even after realizing that the house she was describing was in Tennessee and not Georgia, her pride did not allow her to say anything to the contrary. This led to them suffering an accident that led to the loss of lives. In summation, both Mathilde and the grandmother made mistakes that adversely affected lives because of their pride.