PrideHolic
One of my favorite examples of Pride in conjunction with the Monkey's Paw is featured in a manga called xXxHolic. Without going into too much detail, it relates to the supernatural and granting of wishes for a price (oh that sounds familiar!!). In Volume 3 of the Manga, Yuuko has Watanuki cleaning up. Yuuko states that there is "An affinity between things and humans." She and Watanuki discuss that when people have an affinity they get along well, the same is true for items and people. They are interrupted by a young woman (a folklore student and lover of antiques) who apologizes for "barging in."
Yuuko forgives the intrusion because all meetings are a product of hitsuzen (fate or the inevitable, for lack of better word). When Yuuko asks what caught the young woman's eye, the young woman picks up a small pale colored tube. Yuuko states that she doesn't reccommend the item and after some bartering from the college student agrees to let it go on the condition that she never opens it. Watanuki later sees the young woman as a student teacher at his school. She claims that "Fate is a funny thing."
The student mentions that she doesn't know what is in the tube yet, which Doumeki points out that means one day she will know. This bothers Watanuki and he later asks Yuuko about it who confirms that the item will be opened and that college student will find out what is in it. Watanuki sets out to warn her, but Yuuko tells him that it won't matter because she places too much confidence in herself. Through bad luck, the seal that held it shut is broken and the tube is opened! The student realizes it is the fabled Monkey's Paw! Watanuki tries to warn her that it may not be "real" but she attributes it to her great luck and refuses to listen to him.
As in the original story, she can make wishes. Despite Watanuki's protests she tests it out asking it to rain so that students in gym can miss that class. She wishes "I wish that it would rain from now until tonight!" And so it rains. But Yuuko says that it doesn't have an affinity for "that woman." The next morning Watanuki finds out that all the water from the school pool is gone (from the rain, it seems)! Doumeki makes the point that he does not believe that the ending of the monkey's paw will end "and she made her wish and lived happily ever after."
She uses her next wish to acquire a mirror that an antique shop owner won't sell her. And she acquires it. She notices that the fingers break as she makes wishes, with two done she notes she has three left (different from the original story which only allowed three wishes). She is reminded minimally that Yuuko had warned her and wouldn't reccommend it, but she is positive that she will be fine. She starts to contemplate her other wishes. When confronted that wishers on the paw have met with ill fates, she tells Doumeki and Watanuki that it "may happen to other people, but I'll be just fine."
She refuses to see that bad things can and might happen to her despite other people's concern. In addition, as a folklore student she knows all the mythology and lore of the paw itself, but still thinks herself above it. In fact while struggling with her own thesis she picks up the paw (but doesn't wish). Instead the paw leads her to a lot of great information on the Yata No Kagami. She launches forward in her life and might get published. She's so excited stating she simply has the best luck. She reiterates that she has two wishes and though it may go bad for others, she will be just fine. As we know, those who tempt fate are often ruined by it. Yuuko mentions that the paw itself has no emotion or gratitude and does not concern itself with consequence. It doesn't need too.
While running late, the student wishes for an accident to have more time. Though she doesn't specifically wish for the accident she thinks it might be nice if something were to happen to give her more time. She feels that she would get the time she deserved. A man is killed by a train, but she didn't mean to wish it (which goes back to my thought that even thoughts can be miscontrued in a previous essay). Her passing thought was counted as a wish. Later as events start to go even more wrong for her she finds out that the paper she wrote was plagiarized and she thinks that she will be blamed for the man's death earlier becuase she was standing next to him. She blames the paw and wants it to "make things right." She begs the paw to "take all of these problems away from me!" It does, in the only way it knows how. It ends her life and silently returns to Yuuko's shop. Fingers unbroken and everything returns to the way it should be.
Yuuko closes with the thoughts that no one should consider themselves special. In the end, I feel it was the girl's own pride that caused her so much grief. On one hand, it wasn't her fault necessarily that the seal had been broken. There were things outside of her control for that, but the fact remains that she knew the dangers of the paw and chose to tempt fate anyways. She had several chances to stop and each time she insisted that she would be fine! It happens to other people but not to her. In the end she was undone by the impending misery of having stolen another person's work and taken someone's life. Desperately, she made her last wish and it was granted. The problems were gone though she didn't live to see them resolved.
I think it's interesting that Yuuko mentions items and affinty, and that good affinity is harmonious. It makes me wonder, though, if anyone has affinity with the Monkey's Paw. We saw in the original story that it went through three men and caused them all terrible grief. In this story, it ends the life of a college student. It leads me to believe that through our actions and ideas we create new and changing affinity with the items and people around us. And that in the end we are the key to our own destruction.