Scarlet Ibis Compare Contrast Essay

Even though Brother is being cruel and his motivation for acting that way is bad, it’s proven that brother still cares for Doodle. There are times when Brother is cruel to Doodle and this is present when Brother shows him his casket, “..telling him how we all had believed he would die.... Doodle studied the mahogany box for a long time, then said, ‘It’s not mine.’

In conclusion, the narrator feels terrible of what he has done to Doodle; which possibly lead to Doodle’s death. Near the end, the narrator gets really disappointed with Doodle, because he did

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

Doodle screams for him to not leave him, foreshadowing the way Doodle screams out for his brother in the storm, who causes him to die, just like the how the brother is the cause of Doodle touching his coffin, and in a way, his own death. The whole passage foreshadows almost exactly how Doodle dies, and how his brother becomes a factor in his death. It contributes to the mood by foreshadowing his death, keeping the reader on their toes. Readers can sense the eerie mood when the two interact with each other. They can see how superior the brother is, and how he can easily command Doodle to do anything, up to the point where he pushes him past his limit. Readers, in suspense, will then want to keep reading to see how this attribute of the brother will take a toll later on in the story. As the story continues, readers can infer that the brother is a very proud person, a characteristic that can be used for both good and bad. “It seemed so hopeless from the beginning that it’s a miracle I didn’t give up. But all of us must have something or someone to be proud of, and Doodle had become mine. I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death.” (Hurst 617) This statement foreshadows how the

The older brother of Doodle was ashamed of Doodle ever since he was born he actually made plans to kill Doodle when he was a baby. He was rough with Doodle on purpose so Doodle wouldn’t want to go with him. He didn’t do anything for Doodle out of love he did it so he wouldn’t have a crippled brother.

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

The despondent mood at the beginning of the story, mirrors the loss of innocence of the narrator because he had to face the responsibility and guilt of Doodle’s death.

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

In the story brother is characterized as heartless, because of the way he looks at Doodle. Brother is ashamed that his brother is crippled. He says “I wanted a brother. But Mama, crying, told me that even of William Armstrong lived, he would never do these things with me” (Hurst 31). This shows that Brother doesn’t take into consideration that his brother has a disability. All brother wants is a playmate that can explore and adventure with him, but he knows that he will never have one due to Doodle’s physical condition.

Doodle's initial conflict with his brother leads his brother to patronize him for being different. Brother and his whole family believe that Doodle wasn't going to survive

The metaphors and similes in The Scarlet Ibis create the drama and ironies that effect the characters. “For a long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis, from the heresy of rain” (6) The Scarlet ibis. The Ibis most prominently symbolizes Doodle because both were weak and beautiful in their own way and taken down by a storm, the storms that represent something else. Brother conveys the storms, like the hurricane and the ibis, Brother is Doodle’s storm, the one that makes him weak. He is like the storm because he takes Doodle so far in strength and distance, but leaves him, like the storm left the Ibis. Whether or not it was intentional or conscious. Brining the story further out the two brothers, symbolize mankind as a whole and the misunderstanding that causes war and silent loathing. There are more simple representations in The Scarlet Ibis, for example on the first page; “The last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton field and through every room of our house, speaking the names of our dead.” (1) The Scarlet Ibis. The graveyard flowers symbolize memories and that things always come back. The symbolism create this atmosphere and struggles between the characters that accrue the

After Doodle learns to walk, he and his brother are filled with optimistic hope and ask for too much from Doodle’s fragile body. The most climatic part in the story is when Doodle does not live up to the expectations of his brother, causing Brother to run away with his bitter disappointed feelings, abandoning Doodle in the rain who in vain tries to catch up with him. Earlier in the story Brother pretends to abandon Doodle, “‘Then I’ll leave you here by yourself’... ‘Don’t leave me Brother,’(2)” This is foreshadowing when Doodle cried out to his brother when he was running away, “Brother, Brother, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me(7).” As a consequence of Brothers actions, Doodle dies from pushing his delicate body too hard in his attempt to reach his older sibling.

This is shown when the narrator uses words like I and we. Since the narrator is in first person, the narrator has a close bond to the story that he tells. The Scarlet Ibis has many uses of characterization, including when the narrator states that the only reason that he help Doodle, was so that he would not have to pull him around anymore. When the narrator does this, he is using direct characterization because the author, in the form of the narrator, states that the narrator is selfish and his reasons for helping Doodle were only for his benefit. The narrator is a dynamic character because he changes from an unloving brother that thinks Doodle is just a bother, to a loving brother that mourned the death of his brother that he caused.