Webster's New World Dictionary defines pride as "an unduly high opinion of oneself." Flannery O"Connor uses pride in her short stories. O"Connor's characters position themselves higher in society until someone comes along to lead them to their mistakes. In most cases, the main character is the one having an abundance of pride.
One of the best examples of this is A Good Man is Hard to Find. In this short story, the grandmother is the main character. As the family leaves for their vacation the grandmother remembers to dress like a lady in case something were to happen to her. She is a racist and loves to talk about her youth when she was a maiden lady. During their trip the grandmother leads the family down an old dirt road to see a house from her childhood. Minutes into the journey she realizes that it is the wrong road. She doesn't tell her son, who is driving, because she was embarrassed. The grandmother's cat jumps after being startled by the grandmother. The cat lands on the son and he wreaks the car. After the wreck, The Misfit, an escaped convict, pulls up next to the family. The grandmother recognizes him, and tries to talk him out of doing any harm to the family. When she realizes that her family is in trouble, she tries to offer The Misfit her grace. She begs with him that a person from a good family wouldn't do anything bad to others. She offers one last attempt at redemption as she utters, "Why you"re one of my babies. You"re one of my own children" (O"Connor 1439). In the end of the story, the entire family is killed. Because the grandmother was too ashamed to tell her son that she was wrong about the house, her family was shot (O"Connor 1428-1439).
The Mays from Greenleaf also value position in society. Mrs. May is furious that her workers, the Greenleafs, might be moving up in society. The Greenleaf boys had joined the military and made something of themselves: "The two of them were living now about two miles down the highway on a piece of land that the government had helped them to buy and in a brick duplex bungalow that the government had helped to build and pay for" (O"Connor 1445).
