The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst Essay

Imagine having a brother who is incapable of doing anything for himself. James Hurst’s short story tells the tale of a young boy in this position and the way his mindset is. In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis,” James Hurst uses imagery, setting, and motif to convey Brother’s feelings of guilt. By using these literary elements, Hurst allows the readers to take a deeper look into Brother’s perception towards Doodle at the time.

Brother’s pride and obsession with helping Doodle succeed actually takes away from his goals to help Doodle. Brother states “I prepared a terrific development program for him” (4). Brother’s original intentions were to teach Doodle how to walk, run, swim, climb trees, and fight, which was a supportive thing for him to do. Although Brother believes that this all will help Doodle develop his skills, he ends up hurting Doodle by overworking him. Later, Brother says, “I should have already admitted defeat, but my pride wouldn’t let me” (4). Since Brother wants Doodle to succeed, he pushes him over the limit, which was a

Throughout the story The Scarlet Ibis, Brother slowly kills Doodle; slowly “cutting” him, until the wound was too deep. In the story, mostly for his own greed, Brother exploits Doodle and exhausts him through physical activity that Doodle should not have done. At the beginning of the story, we can see how, through hard work and endless hours of work, Brother managed to make Doodle walk. From page 6: “Every day that summer we went to the... Old Woman Swamp, and I put him on his feet at least a hundred times each afternoon. Occasionally I too became discouraged because it didn’t seem as if he was trying”. This shows how Brother continuously pushes Doodle’s physical boundaries, and, because of the last sentence of the quote, does it for

“The Scarlet Ibis” shows that what is perceived to be may not always be true. For instance, Doodle was born in a caul, so many people had little hope for his survival. Even when he attempts to sit upright, the doctor fears that with his “weak heart this strain would kill him…”(Hurst 555). However, they do not count on his mental strength, and with a lot of perseverance “He learned how to crawl...For the first time he became one of them [us]” (Hurst 555). This proves the appearance vs. reality theme because even though Doodle’s body was shriveled up and doctors said he would die, Doodle lives. He shows that even though he is physically abnormal, his internal strength is much greater than that of any average boy, and he can do anything he puts his mind to. Another example of this theme in the story is when they start to train more after Brother teaches Doodle how to walk. Everything is going well until “the winter,” where Brother says they “didn’t make much progress for I was in school and Doodle suffered from one bad cold after another” (Hurst 560). This is a sign that Doodle is slowly dying and getting worse. However, everybody overlooks that, and thinks that he is improving. Once Doodle recovers from the terrible colds he suffered from during the winter, they push him even harder to make up for the lost time which, as a result, expedites his approaching death. The tone in this story develops from being positive to negative. In the beginning, everyone assumes Doodle will die, but fortunately he does not. Conversely, in the end, everyone believes he is

¨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.

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.

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

The first and one of the most important literary devices you can detect in this writing, is the usage of flashback. Hurst uses flashback to develop the whole story, relationship between Doodle and Brother, and explain what happened to Doodle. A majority of “The Scarlet Ibis” is told through this flashback and past tense. The flashback improves the story and is used in a way to show Brother at the beginning and how much his past with Doodle still affects him. We really get to see that guilt and even his maturity when he is older, because he goes back to all these places where him and Doodle played and grew up. Yet even though it's so far in the past, going to his old home and fields brings back painful memories. *

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

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

One can infer that some of this selfishness comes from the fact that Doodle is disabled and at times brother feels that he deserves better than Doodle for a brother. Although Brother does have patience at sometimes often he can become impatient and this is when his selfishness wins his inner battle. Brother often challenged Doodle and one day he realizes,” that Doodle's and [his] plans had come to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty within [him] awakened. [he] ran as fast as [he] could, leaving him far behind with a wall of rain dividing [Them]. The drops stung [his] face like nettles, and the wind flared the wet glistening leaves of the bordering trees.

“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.

Through out the life of Doodle and Brother , the Brother's pride is guilty of many things. The first thing that shows his guilty when the Brother was 6 years old." 'It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow' "(595).This shows that Doodle is bad to his brother because he tired to kill because he didn't really exist in his family. Doodle's brother planned to kill him because he wanted a brother that could boy stuff with him. Also Doodle's brother didn't like his brother because he couldn't even talk and play with him. That's one part why Brother is guilty of Doodle's death.

Have you ever wanted to help someone that was not as fortunate in life as you, in the story “The Scarlet Ibis” that is what Brother wished to do for Doodle but sadly it didn’t work and the situation became unfortunate. Brother and Doodle are brothers but they don’t have very much in common because Doodle has disabilities that Brother would never fully understand, no one ever will. When the story first starts Brother and Doodles relationship isn’t very strong and Brother is embarrassed about his brother but as the story continues the bond between the two grows and the love eachother. Many believe that Brother indirectly murdered Doodle because he was ashamed of him; however, Brother was trying to help Doodle and wanted to help him be normal. So the bigger picture of the story is that Brother wanted the best for Doodle and he wanted nothing more to help Doodle become more like a normal kid but it sadly turned fatal.

There are multiple themes throughout “ The Scarlet Ibis”.The strongest theme in the story is that you should not do things for the benefit of yourself all the time, you should do things for the benefit of others also.His selfishness is shown in this line of the story “ they did not know that I did it for myself; that pride,[...] and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (Hurst 468).Even though Doodle finally walked, his brother helped him for his own good, which shows his need to help himself before others.He taught Doodle how to walk for his own selfish reason that he was “ashamed” of him (Hurst 468). This shows the reader that doing things for your own benefit can have a negative effect on you.