Summary Of The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst

The short story "The Scarlet Ibis" was written by James Hurst. This story is about a boy and his younger, disabled brother. Doodle was born and diagnosed as an invalid. Not being able to do certain things affected his life. The narrator set out to teach Doodle the things he never thought he could do. The narrator is described to be a prideful and determined person.

¨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.

In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, Hurst illustrates the struggle of one boy with his disability and his and his brothers expectations.

In “The Scarlet Ibis”, Hurst demonstrates through indirect characterization the narrator’s selfishness, that being prideful can cause harm for the ones close. Doodle’s brother always wanted someone to play with, but when he found out about his “invalid” disabled brother he was disgusted, disrespectful, and selfish. He had thought of helping his brother as a burden, and his pride was too high too accept the fact. So Doodle’s brother set out to teach Doodle how to walk, only because “[he] did it for [himself]: that pride, whose slave [he] was, spoke to [him] louder than all [the family], and that Doodle walked only because [he] was ashamed of having a crippled brother.”(10) In this quote we see Doodle’s brother show his selfish side when he describes how he helped his brother “for [himself].” What he meant was that he only wanted to help because of his pride.

Simon Birch and “The Scarlet Ibis” both reveal that pride can have negative effects, especially when the concern for one’s self image is his motivation. When a person tries to save their pride by hiding an aspect of themselves, it will have consequences. Trying to have people perceive oneself as something they are not can lead to feelings of guilt and distrust. In “The Scarlet Ibis”, the narrator teaches his brother, Doodle, how to walk. His parents are proud of Doodle and of him.

In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis”, by James Hurst, Doodle was born with many disabilities. The narrator was quite embarrassed about having a little brother who could not talk or walk, so he set out to become a mentor for Doodle. The narrator emerges from an arrogant, self indulgent individual to an affectionate, knowledgeable young adult by experiencing the trauma of losing his brother because of his own selfish desires.

Could pride take over a person's life? In "The Scarlet Ibis" written by James Hurst, the Narrator was the only son of the family, as far as he was at the age of six, the Narrator had a brother. He loved his little brother, but the Narrator's family has thought that Doodle would not survive the main issue of his life and not being able to do stuff. The Narrator and his family finally had seen that he could talk, and there was no sign of walking. The Narrator had to take his bother everywhere he had to go in his little go-cart. Which though the Narrator had been tired of carrying him around in the the go-cart, which, made him think that he can teach Doodle how to walk. Everyone was amused that Doodle could walk and now the Narrator for his pride of making him walk had consumed his mind and pressured Doodle to do more thinks before summer was over and start school. In the last week, before school started, in the bloody tree there was a Scarlet Ibis and fell down with no coordinated and died fragile, feathers everywhere. After that afternoon the Narrator's pride had vanished and ran home and left his brother who had fallen down.The moment that the Narrator had realized that he had pressured him and look for Doodle, he had died so similar to the Scarlet Ibis, delicate, blood all over ad with no coordination. For this reason, the Narrator is innocent and had not having nothing to do with his brother recognizing

The “Scarlet Ibis” is a short story about a boy born with a medical condition, and his brother, who means well but is self absorbed. The story starts off about a grown man who recalls to the time when his little brother, Doodle is with him. It shows his guilt about Doodle’s death, his sorrow surrounding it, and it reflects on the good times they had together. In the “Scarlet Ibis” Brother is characterized as cruel, caring, and prideful.

“Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either,” said Erich Fromm. One of these people proves to be the narrator in “The Scarlet Ibis” written by James Hurst. The narrator, referred to as Brother, is a boy with a disabled brother named William Armstrong. Realizing that his new brother would never meet up to his expectations, the narrator declares him as a disappointment. William amazes the family by merely surviving and grows to be the age of two before receiving his new name: Doodle.

The narrator's pride. Well, first we see that the narrator is embarrassed by having Doodle as his brother. We can see that when he says “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 353). Other places he shows his pride is in (Hurst 356) “Once I had succeeded in teaching Doodle to walk, I began to believe in my own infallibility and I prepared a terrific development program for him, unknown to Mama and Daddy, of course.” His pride has gotten too much in his head and started going harder on Doodle.

Brother states in the text, ¨ 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.¨(pg.4). Brother only wanted to teach Doodle how to walk because he was embarrassed for himself, not Doodle, and that is the only reason why he set out to teach him. Another piece of evidence for this topic is, the narrator was ashamed that he only taught Doodle how to walk for his own satisfaction.(pg.6). In this evidence the narrator is admitting that he did wrong and only cares about himself. The last piece of evidence is, ¨School was only a few weeks away, and Doodle was far behind schedule.¨(pg.8). Brother was only teaching Doodle so many skills only because he wanted to look like he had a normal brother at

At the beginning, Doodle had been very hesitant to go along with his brother’s plans. He tried to argue with his brother. “I can’t walk, Brother,” Doodle said. “Who says so?” He demanded. “Mama, the doctor, everybody,” uttered Doodle. “Oh, you can walk,” The narrator said.” Shortly after that, Doodle began to follow the narrator’s orders and self ambitions. Soon, the narrator had acquired too much ambition, putting Doodle at risk. This is evident with Doodle’s constant cry, “don’t hurt me, Brother.” Little did the narrator know he would be pushing his brother too far. Later in the story, the narrator let his ambition overcome him and decided to keep on pushing his brother. He did not want a brother who could not do what other normal schoolboys could do. He admits to himself, “the knowledge that Doodle’s and my plans had come to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty within me awakened.” He believed what Doodle could not do would greatly affect him and his social

In “The Scarlet Ibis,” the author, James Hurst, uses indirect characterization, mainly through the narrator’s internal thoughts and feelings, to convey the theme that disabilities are not flaws in an individual, and that they are mere differences that make each individual unique. Early in the story, the author explains that Doodle, the narrator’s brother, has a deadly heart condition which prevents him from participating in activities such as running, jumping, swimming, and even walking. When Doodle is not expected to live when he is born, the narrator says that he does not want an “invalid” brother, but instead, wants a brother who can run around, jump, and play with him. Even the rest of the family does not believe that he is going to survive, and they do not even name him until he lives for three months. Later in the story, the narrator thinks, “...but he learned to crawl

Pride Overcomes Judgement James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis” is about the battle between love and pride and reveals that pride alters people’s perception of loved ones capabilities demonstrated by symbolism. James Hurst’s use of symbolism suggests that the Scarlet Ibis is a symbol of Doodle’s life and his journey to be able to walk, even though his disabilities challenge that. The narrator teaches Doodle to walk out of this embarrassment towards him, all because he isn’t like a “normal” six year old kid. After he successfully teaches his brother, Doodle, to walk he lets his pride and embarrassment alter his perception and pushed Doodle to his maximum capability.

Without delay the narrator took Doodle to accomplish more than walking; he taught him swimming, rowing, climbing, and swinging. They would work until Doodle could not do anymore, till he couldn’t left an oar or lift his arm to take another stroke. The only reason Doodle did it because his brother would always say, ‘“Aw, come on, Doodle,’ I urged. ‘You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school?’ ‘Does it make any difference?’ ‘It certainly does,’ I said.’’. (52) In the beginning of the story it talked about how Doodle would turn blue and almost black in the face as he was straining just to get up and crawl. Likewise when in the ending he said he knew that he was pushing his brother to run faster and Doodle had never done that before so he was struggling and ended up dying.