Expectations Of Characters In Shakespeare's 'The Scarlet Ibis'

However, Doodle’s brother is also kind because he appreciated Doodle in his life and loved having him around. Doodle’s brother decided to teach Doodle how to walk because, at 5, Doodle could only crawl and this embarrassed his brother. As they progressed, Doodle accomplished standing and Doodle’s brother said, ”When he fell, I grabbed him in my arms and hugged him, our laughter pealing through the swamp like a ringing bell”(Hurst 558). Doodle’s brother wanted to be there for Doodle and would help him through the trials of his life. There is an abundant amount of meaning created here because it displays the bond between two people and the love they can share. A sense of joy is conceived and demonstrates how their relationship could have been in future years. Because Doodle’s brother wanted to become close with Doodle and bond with him like siblings in other families, he taught Doodle how to lie. Through his imagination, Doodle came up with a story about how he could marry his mom and how Doodle’s brother could marry his dad. Doodle’s brother explains, “Of course I was old enough to know this wouldn’t work out, but the picture he painted was so beautiful and serene, that all I could do was whisper Yes, yes”(Hurst 559). Doodle’s brother did love what Doodle could do and for what he brought into his life. As you can see,

In this passage, the eldest brother says, “...I put him on his feet at least a hundred time each afternoon.” This quote from the story is an example of hyperbole which Hurst uses to emphasize how many times Doodle fails. The amount of times that he fails is what causes him to feel weak. At the end of the story, the narrator says “‘Yes, yes,’ I cried, and he cried it too, and the grass beneath us was soft and the smell of the swamp was sweet.” In this portion of the story, Hurst uses subtle imagery to show the boys’ feelings of

Doodle is not a normal child. As a newborn baby, the doctors believed he was going to die. The family was devestated and already had a carpenter make a coffin for the boy. However, Doodle survived. The boy grew older, and his older brother believed him to be more of a burden than a blessing.

Brother decides to help Doodle learn how to walk. He helps him be a “normal brother” by teaching him how to swim, walk, run, and etc. When Doodle dies, Brother shields his body from the rain. He cries when Doodle dies.

¨At six years old, when his brother is born, the narrator tells the reader that from the first, Doodle was "a disappointment." When he learns that Doodle is possibly mentally and physically challenged, the narrator begins his plan to kill his brother; however, his plans are soon discarded after Doodle smiles at him¨. (James Hurst) The main conflict of "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst is Brother's inability to deal with Doodle's disabilities.

To improve one’s understanding of how the narrator changes, one must first be acquainted with the situation: Doodle is born with a heart

Hurst utilizes foreshadowing to demonstrate how the brother’s selfishness and pride leads to the death of Doodle. Not long after Doodle was born, the mother explains to the brother that Doodle might be mentally handicapped as well as physically handicapped. The brother could not accept the fact that his brother is different, so he “began to make plans to kill him [Doodle] by smothering him in his sleep” (Hurst 1). From the very beginning, Doodle’s brother is unable to except the fact that his brother is not normal and never will be. His selfishness and pride leads him to want to kill

When the Brother was forcing Doodle to learn how to walk, Doodle was in pain and he didn’t want to learn to walk at all. “This time [Doodle] did not lift his face up out of the rubber grass. ‘ I just can’t do it. Let’s make honeysuckle wreath.’”(4) From this quote, Hurst shows that Doodle was giving up, Doodle’s body knew that it could not support Doodle to walk yet, he needed to practice for a long time. As a younger teenage boy, the narrator was not well educated and did not understand the capability of Doodle’s body and he often force Doodle to do things that he don’t want to do. “There is within [the Brother] a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at times I was mean to Doodle.”(3) At the time of the story, the Brother was childish and very irresponsible. Just like what he has said in the quotes above, the Brother was cruel to Doodle. He forced Doodle to touch a coffin and threatened Doodle that he would leave Doodle if he doesn't touch a coffin. The coffin was made originally for Doodle, since everyone thought Doodle was going to die very soon. Later in the training program, the narrator wanted Doodle to run, Doodle’s limited physical ability was overwhelmed, the Brother simply ditched Doodle in the heavy rain since he was mad at Doodle for not reaching the goal that they

The Significance of Doodle’s Lie: I get by with a Little Help from my Friends

Older siblings feel obligated to take authority over their younger siblings. The narrator took the responsibility of teaching Doodle to develop into an ordinary boy; however, he supports Doodle out of selfishness. With this in mind, the narrator changes Doodle’s name from “William Armstrong” to Doodle because he believes Doodle is not strong enough to have that name. He believes “William Armstrong” only “sounds good only on a tombstone,” (595) so changing Doodle’s name was the kindest thing he could have done. Likewise, the narrator selfishly disobeys the doctor’s list of don'ts for Doodle because he doesn’t agree with Doodle’s limitations. In fact, the narrator hauls Doodle carelessly around cotton fields and whips him around corners on two wheels of the go-cart. As a result, the narrator decides to take the next step in teaching Doodle. As school approaches, Doodle falls behind on learning to run, swim, and climb. Therefore, the narrator decides to double his efforts and push Doodle even harder. “I made him swim until he turned blue and row until he couldn’t lift an oar. Wherever we

The narrator has pushed farther then he should have pushed doodle because he did not want him to be burden to him and slow him down but he let his pride get the best of

The narrator, Brother, tells the story of Doodle, his brother, and his childhood with all his disabilities; starting off by telling about Doodle when he was a baby and toddler, about how he could not do much for himself for a long time, but eventually learns to crawl. He soon moves onto when Doodle got a little older and Brother would have to take him everywhere he went and how the two would take on the mission of teaching Doodle to walk; they spent almost everyday out in the woods making Doodle stronger and stronger. On Doodle’s sixth birthday, they showed the family what he could do;

The narrator always had strong opinions about Doodle. Ever since the day Doodle was born, the narrator’s pride was much too high for having him as a brother, saying, “he was born when I was six and was, from the outset, a disappointment.” Not even giving his brother a chance to grow up and prove himself. Since the narrator did not know how to handle having a

An important factor is that “The Scarlet Ibis” is told in the first person from the perspective of the brother of Doodle, a boy with a heart condition, after Doodle dies. And a change in character happens after Doodle’s death. The narrator’s change isn’t that directly shown but hangs over the rest of the story as commentary to what’s happening. The only way for someone with a

The setting of “The Scarlet Ibis” helps prepare the readers’ state of mind from the very beginning. In the first place, the story takes place at the end of World War I and represents the internal conflict the narrator has as he struggles between guilt of his younger brother’s death and the acceptance of his brother’s disabilities. With this in mind, the narrator is abashed over Doodle’s inability to walk because he thinks disabilities are shameful, and he wanted a brother who was athletic, outgoing, and adventurous. For this reason,”When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn't walk, so I set out to teach him (Hurst 417).” The narrator admits to going out of his way to train Doodle to walk because he has so much pride that it is getting in the way of more important goals, meaning he would rather have a “normal” brother than a happy one. The poor treatment of his brother ultimately leads to Doodle’s death. Furthermore, he forces Doodle to do things unwillingly, such as touch his own coffin and train him to be “normal”. The narrator traumatizes his little brother to think a certain way in order to become accepted by society. Even