Hurbis

3 Pages 707 Words

Hubris: A Pitfall
O’Connor uses Julian’s hubris in “everything that rises must converge” to show his downfall.
Throughout the story Julian feels he is above his mom and the world. Julian thinks this way because his mom is blind to the fact that the world is changing and her old views are not “correct” anymore. This is ironic because Julian is so caught up in how his mom looks at the world that he can’t see how kind she is by letting him stay with her even though he should be supporting himself. He can’t see her kindness and wants to teach her a lesson. “The law of it was to sacrifice herself after she had first created the necessity to do so by making a mess of things.”(p.11)This is the kindness that Julian cannot see when he judges his mom, which shows his excessive arrogance.
During the story Julian has time to “withdrawal” from the world and judge people objectively. He feels superior in this way because of his college education which by the way his mom paid for. “H could not bear to be a part of what was going on around him. From it he could see out and judge but in it he was safe from any kind of penetration from without.” This quote further proves Julian’s hubris, he withdrawal from the world and looks on people objectively; this leads me to believe that Julian thinks he is a Christ-like figure. When he goes into this state he can see his mom in “absolute clarity” but in reality he is fogged because he cant seem to see her inner kindness, “ what she meant when she said she had won was that she had brought up successfully and had sent him to college and he had turned out so well- good looking (her teeth had gone unfilled so that his could be straightened)…”(p.11) This is the perfect example of his ignorance to his mothers kindness and self sacrifices.
Every time he talks to his mom he tries to put her down in some way and tries to belittle her because of his feelings toward her. “In...