Pride In The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst

Doodle, the handicapped boy, is mentally developed slower and is challenged to learn how to walk with the help of his brother, six years older than he is. Doodle's brother didn't want to take Doodle everywhere in a go-kart, so the both of them were determined to make Doodle walk by his birthday, and he does.

In the Scarlet Ibis, Brother didn’t love Doodle and never treated him correctly. On page, 345, it says, “He was a burden in so many ways.” When a person says that, it normally means they don’t like that person, much less love them. It would seem as Brother didn’t love Doodle, and never wanted him around. From the passage on page 345, it also has Brother dreaming about killing sweet little Doodle. It states, “It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to kill by smothering him with a pillow.” That part of the story shows us big time that Brother does not love Doodle, and he could care less if Doodle died. Not only does Brother not love Doodle, he was a little embarrassed of having Doodle as a brother.

Brother is guilty for Doodle's death because his first dissapointment lead to a dark thought. Brother thinks that," It was bad enough having and invalid brother..., so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow" (595). Even though Brother was six years and Doodle was barely born, Brother already felt disappointed in Doodle. Brother knows that Doodle could not be the younger sibling Brother wanted, he decided that killing Doodle would be the only solution. Maybe, throughout both of them growing up, Brother

Doodle’s family didn’t even name him until he was three months old. The only one in the family close enough to care was his brother, and he was constantly hurting and teasing Doodle. “One day I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him how we all believed he would die (Hurst 353). His brother took him wherever he went in a little go cart, and Doodle loved it, but because Doodle’s brother hated that Doodle was disabled, he would take Doodle places and do dangerous things with him just to be mean. His family did not know how to love him.

Doodle was born prematurely, so early that he was severely disabled, which his brother never failed to remind him every chance he got. He was made a casket shortly after he was born, as he wasn’t expected to live for a long period of time. The narrator highly disliked is brother, so much that he made him touch his casket, leading to him to realize how he could use Doodle. ‘Doodle was paralyzed, so I put him on my shoulder and carried him down the ladder, and even when we were

When Brother set out to teach Doodle to walk and realized he had succeeded he became so proud and was convinced that he could teach Doodle anything. The only thing is Brother didn't teach him anything that he did for Doodle's benefit he did it for his own satisfaction. When Doodle had failed and couldn't get up Brother let his pride control him. "I ran as far as I could, leaving him far behind with a wall of rain dividing us" (604). The only reason Brother left Doodle is because of his pride. He felt he had spent so much time teaching him things so he could be normal all for nothing, and that aggrevated him. Doodle had just shown extraordinary success by rowing against the current and running as far as he did but for some reason that wasn't enough for Brother. The least that Brother could have done was went back and picked him up helping him back to the house considering all of the energy he had exerted. The only thing that Doodle ever asked of his brother was not to leave him and that is exactly what he

Doodle’s Brother’s selfishness causes him to be ashamed of Doodle’s disabilities. Doodle’s brother felt “embarrassed of having a crippled brother of that age who couldn’t walk so (he) set out to teach (Doodle). (132)” Doodle was born with a tiny body and a bigger head. Everyone believed he would die. Brother is embarrassed of Doodle because he is different than others. He wants Doodle to fit in society and does not accept Doodle for how he is. Brother is selfish because he was an only child, he never learned the correct way to share and accept others. Brother’s parents put a lot of pressure on him, so he

He made Doodle touch the coffin that would have been his. Brother was going to smother Doodle with a pillow. Brother leaves Doodle behind and is ultimately the cause of his death.

The reason behind this is Doodle looked up to his brother. This meant anything his brother said, did, or felt he went along with. Doodle was very empathetic and impressionable which is shown through conflict and characterization

Could having too much pride actually kill someone? As "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst moves deeper into the plot, pride came to mind after Doodle's death. Brother had much pride. He learned that sometimes it's not such a great thing to have that much pride all the time. Brother's actions and statements told that he was guilty of Doodle's death throughout the story.

Multiple times throughout this story the narrator attempts to leave Doodle scared and alone, and Doodle calls out to his brother, “Don’t go leave me, brother” (Hurst 418).This shows not only the dependency Doodle has on his older brother, but also the lack of empathy and care that he bestows on Doodle. When the older brother declares that he is going to teach Doodle to walk, his response is, “‘I can’t walk brother”’ (Hurst 418). This shows that, in the beginning, Doodle has little hope for himself, and that he based his accomplishments off of what others thought of him.

Many times we think pride is a good thing, but in this case, it can hurt the ones you love. Webster Dictionary’s definition of pride is, “a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements.” In this story, I will talk about one boy’s pride that comes from the achievements of his brother rather than his own. Rather than celebrating the glory of his brother’s achievements, he lets the pride get to him. This makes him act narcissistic. In “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the narrator lets his pride and ambition ultimately destroy his brother.

This is shown when it says “So I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow.”(Hurst 595)Since the beginning he didn’t want an invalid brother. He even thought and male plans to kill him. If Doodle wasn’t bothering him or doing anything to him then why would he want to kill him? Doddles brother was just thinking about himself the whole time.” They did not know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother.”(Hurst 599) He did not do it for Doodles good, he never even thought of how Doodle felt. His pride was stronger than him. Because he was ashamed of Doodle , that made him push doodle way too hard for someone like him. Until the end is when he realizes that what he did to Doodle was wrong but it’s too late. The author shows this when he says “I ran as fast as I could, leaving him behind …Finally I went back and found him … “Doodle! Doodle!” I cried, shaking him, but there was no answer…” (Hurst 604) He ran as fast as he could to make

Finally, in The Scarlet Ibis, Doodle strives for these objectives because he is dependent on his brother. Perhaps he is even scared that if he doesn’t do what his brother asks, then he will no longer have help from him. This is supported when they are in the loft and the narrator says, “And before I’ll help you down from the loft, you’re going to have to touch it.” (Page 387). He is threatening to leave Doodle up in the loft, all alone, until he touches the mahogany box which was to be his coffin. Doodle becomes very frightened by this intimidation, which is probably the cause of his fear later in the story. This causes conflict between Doodle and his older sibling because Doodle basically cannot do anything without his brother, and if he is left, he becomes panicked.

Pride can be positive and can help people overcome the difficult struggles they are going through, and can also lead to bonding or getting closer. In this story, the narrator has a disabled brother whos parents and doctor both don’t believe he is able to learn to walk. The narrator doesn’t think of Doodle as a brother, but as someone who is disabled and tries to fix him by helping him learn to walk. One piece of evidence that shows that pride is positive in the story, is when the narrator shows how he cares about Doodle and wants him to get better by helping him learn how to walk. After he got to know Doodle a little bit more he felt more connected and believed that he would learn to walk and put in the effort to help him learn. “I'm going to teach you to walk, Doodle.’ I said. ‘I can't walk brother,’ He said. ‘Who says so?’ I demanded. ‘Mama, the doctor--everybody.’ ‘Oh you can walk”(Hurst 3). This quote shows how pride can lead to helping someone get through something they are struggling with, because it says “I’m going to teach you to walk, Doodle.” he’s very confident in the way he asserts his ability to teach Doodle to walk he does this instead of saying “I am going to try” or asking it as a question “Would you like me to?” These are both less confident ways he could go about asking. Then another part of the quote that stood out was when the author wrote the narrator saying “ ‘Oh you can walk’ ” to his brother, Doodle. He’s dismissing his mother and the doctor who are both older and more knowledgeable than him. This elaborates on the fact that the narrator shows a tremendous amount of pride and arrogance throughout the story. This shows that the narrator had fueled Doodle’s desire to succeed for his brother because the narrator pushed him to be normal, thus Doodle being able to walk. Before everyone told Doodle he could not walk so Doodle did not believe in himself, until his brother pushed him to