Selfishness In The Cask Of Amontillado And Marigolds

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Recommended: Flawed characters in literature

People are not perfect. Each and every one of us has flaws that make us who we are. Authors show this in their writings through their characters. Every character in a piece of literature has a flaw, whether it is self-deprecation, arrogance, laziness, too judgmental, et cetera. Protagonists from the short stories “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe, and “Marigolds” by Eugenia W. Collier all share the common flaw of selfishness. This is shown through their interactions with other characters, their words/thoughts and or their intentions. In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis”, the Narrator that is only referred to as Brother shows his selfishness through his interactions and intentions with his …show more content…

Towards the middle of the story, Lizabeth, her brother and the other neighborhood children rush over to Miss Lottie’s to throw pebbles at her flowers that she so deeply cared for. The children flung stones at the blossoms and Lizabeth with her “expertly aimed stone cut the head off of one of the blossoms” (Collier 146). This sent the other children into a stone flinging frenzy and ended up destroying all of the blossoms. Miss Lottie became enraged and began to cry over her ruined flowers. Lizabeth never thought of the repercussion this would have on Miss Lottie and the love she had for her flowers. She did this for her own entertainment without thinking about who she could hurt. After the stone throwing incident, Lizabeth continued to stay with Mrs. Lottie and yell insults at her, because she was “mad with the power of inciting such rage” (Collier 146). For the second time Lizabeth was not concerned with Miss Lottie’s feelings in the slightest and only taunted her and called her cruel names to entertain herself. Lizabeth’s actions and words presented to readers just how selfish she was in her

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