Martin, Old Martin, and other characters begin the novel full of pride and arrogance towards others. As the narrative progresses, however, they soon realize through adverse experiences that a lack of humility and kindness often comes at a high cost. Through their setbacks, the novel examines the problem of pride and its consequences.

Martin is initially an arrogant young man who treats everyone else as beneath him. When Tom shows kindness towards him, he accepts it merely as his due instead of being grateful. When Mark joins Martin on the voyage to America, Martin continues to act as if Mark is his inferior. In Eden, Martin begins to realize the error of his prideful ways. He sees how Mark shows him friendship by staying by his side. Mark’s selflessness makes Martin question his selfishness and where it has gotten him. Martin asks himself, “how was it that this man who had had so few advantages was so much better than he who had had so many?” (686). In taking care of Mark and being selfless for one of the first times in his life, Martin starts to realize how his selfishness has impacted others, dampening his pride and showing him the truth about his character. Martin vows to change: “He made a solemn resolution that when his strength returned he would not dispute the point or resist the conviction, but would look upon it as an established fact, that selfishness was in his breast, and must be rooted out” (688).

Old Martin is similarly selfish and prideful at the novel’s start, as symbolized by the sickness he cannot shake at the Blue Dragon. Pecksniff’s description of Old Martin’s selfishness makes the patriarch see his own true nature. He battles this revelation in silence throughout the novel, only revealing his changed nature in the conclusion. Feeling ashamed of his former callousness and greed, Old Martin sets about trying to help others instead, such as ensuring Tom gets a job when he needs one and seeking to expose Pecksniff’s machinations. By the novel’s end, Old Martin has chosen humility and affection for others over his pride.

A couple of the minor characters also realize the problem of pride. Anthony Chuzzlewit, arguably just as selfish as his brother, also changes when he learns that his own son wants to kill him for his inheritance. He tells Chuffey just before his death, “This crime began with me. It began when I taught him to be too covetous of what I have to leave, and made the expectation of it his great business!” (1017). The unserious and unscrupulous Merry also faces hardship that causes her to change. Being married to and abused by Jonas leads her to see that she should have taken Old Martin’s advice to take marriage more seriously. Upon seeing Tom for the first time since her marriage, Merry has “a speaking look, and Tom knew what it said. ‘You see how misery has changed me. I can feel for a dependant now, and set some value on his attachment.’” (915). Once freed of Jonas, Merry continues to live humbly and kindly, renouncing her former prideful ways.

Thus, all the prideful characters in Martin Chuzzlewit must face hardship, and though some end the novel either still facing the consequences of their actions (Pecksniff and Cherry) or dead (Jonas and Tigg), all the others learn from their mistakes and become happier for it.