The Theme Of Love In James Hurst's 'The Scarlet Ibis'

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.

Symbolism is used in literature as a visual representation of something invisible, which provides deeper meaning to the writing beyond what is being described. In “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, various examples of symbolism are incorporated into the story. The plot and action that take place in the excerpt can be thought of as one level, while the symbolism of certain things in the writing act on another level to enhance the story. Birds are of extreme symbolic importance within the narrative, and encourage a reader to think below the surface of the text.

Guilt, a word with some very negative connotations. Things that immediately come to mind may be simple mistakes on an essay, or an eternal grief that you must bear. The narrator in “The Scarlet Ibis” feels an immense guilt for his poor decisions. In James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis” readers learn the dangers of guilt through one man’s tragic loss of his handicapped brother, even after he watched him grow up to defy doctors’ predictions by walking, talking all on his own.

James Hurst is the author of the heart breaking short story entitled “The Scarlet Ibis”. “The Scarlet Ibis” is a short story about two brothers; one brother is healthy, while the other is physically handicapped. The short story is centered on the idea that the older, healthier brother’s selfishness and pride ultimately led to the death of his younger brother, Doodle. Numerous quotes throughout the story demonstrate Hurst’s use of symbolism and foreshadowing to portray and predict Doodle’s untimely and heartbreaking death.

Symbols are used to represent something else deeper than the actual meaning either in real life or in literature. In the story “The Scarlet Ibis”, Doodle who is mentally and physically disabled was not expected to live. Although, he did live, however, he could not do things other children could do such as walk or talk. Therefore, his older brother set out to teach him because he was embarrassed to have an abnormal brother. However, many years later Doodle is soon overworked until he can no longer go on, and he sadly dies. In “The Scarlet Ibis”, James Hurst uses the caul, the oriole nest, and the blood od Doodle as symbols to offer greater insight into abstract ideas that are difficult to understand on their own.

This quote is extremely influential as it demonstrates examples of simile, metaphor, and personification to deeply show the narrator’s tone after he revises his past actions. The narrator is calling cruelty a knot, and is stating that he contains it himself. The narrator is also stating that the knot of cruelty was borne by his and and Doodle’s stream of love. Afterwards in the quote, he compares the knot of cruelty borne by him and Doodle to how blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction.. Consequently, this quote illustrates that overtime, the narrator starts to feel regret over the actions he made towards his brotherhood with Doodle. He starts to comprehend that due to his pride and selfishness, he abolished the brotherhood among him and Doodle that could have instead been strengthened and enhanced to a further level. Unfortunately, by the end of the story, the narrator was not able to enhance the pride/selfishness qualities of himself, which eventually led to the death of Doodle. As presented above with all the quotes that contain figurative language, the narrator allowed his pride and selfishness to control him which led to the destruction of the brotherhood between him and Doodle. The universal truth that is

For instance, in “The Scarlet Ibis”, James states “There is within me (and with sadness I have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love…” (4) By reason of Doodle being born different from Doodle’s brother, Doodle’s brother thought he could be cruel to Doodle. These examples show how figurative language gives the story “The Scarlet Ibis” a dismal tone.

How far would you take your ‘love’ for someone? Would you kill them? Would you work them till they turn black and blue, or make them touch their own casket just to punish or scare them? Brother seemed to have no limits for Doodle, in “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst. In this short story, Hurst showed the relationship between a crippled child and his older, forceful brother. Brother pushed Doodle to his maximum, trying to get him to walk, swim, run, and become a ‘normal’ child. Yet, becuase of his embarassment, Brother took his training to great lengths, killing Doodle in the end. This passage uses several important literary devices that advance the story, such as help the readers gain a better meaning of the symbols and what Hurst is trying to convey.

Love through relationships can be represented in many ways, for example romantic love and platonic love. In “A Bolt of White Cloth” by Leon Rooke, the couple has many types of love relationships. The wife loves her husband in a passionate way, the wife also has a deep connection and love for their cat that passed away. A relationship with a child is also mention by the man, however we soon discover they are unable to conceive. The evil apparent in the relationship with the cat is death, death by the actions of mankind. When the man inquires about their love and what they have loved, the woman replies, “Last year this time I had me a fourth, but it got run over. Upon the road there, by the time tall trees, by a man who didn’t even stop” (Rooke 3). Even after the passing of the cat the women's love was unconditional, it states, “She’d dug a grave under the grapevine and said sweet words over it. She sorely missed the cats” (Rooke 3). Death is inevitable, someday the passing of our loved ones will come. Death of the cat symbolizes the evil present in their love relationships.

In “The Scarlet Ibis” James Hurst symbolizes the narrator’s brother, Doodle, as the scarlet ibis, and the narrator as the storm, in order to reveal the theme that challenging someone to go beyond their limits can help in achieving extraordinary results, however pushing the limits too far may prove fatal. As the narrator, Doodle, and their family were eating dinner, they saw a scarlet ibis getting carried by the storm and “[tumbling] down, … landing at [their] feet with a thud”. Doodle’s family doesn’t care much, however, Doodle takes time to respect the bird and to bury it, even though he saw the bird for the first time as if he had some special connection with the ibis. “It’s a scarlet ibis! … South America to Florida. A storm must have brought it here. A scarlet Ibis! How many miles it had traveled to die like this, in our yard, beneath the bleeding tree” (14). The bird, native to South America had flown all the way from “South America to Florida”, which was way beyond its natural capacity. Doodle had also come a long way from being a baby who everyone thought wouldn't survive or a cripple who couldn’t stand. “A storm … brought it here”, somewhat assisting it and somewhat forcing it. Doodle learned to walk, with help from the narrator who pushed him and didn’t let him give up. Now the narrator was pushing Doodle, even more, to learn rowing, swimming, and fighting even though his body and heart were weak. The storm had powered the amazing flight but pushed the bird’s

By examining loss, we learn that humans can feel loss when they do selfish things to others. For example the narrator in the story “The Scarlet Ibis” thinks that his brother is weak and would not survive very long because of how Doodle was born . The narrator feels ashamed to have Doodle as a brother. Then got tired of seeing his brother struggle and tries to teach him how to walk and when doing so the narrator feels achieved. “They did not know what I did it for myself that pride, whose slave I walk because I spoke to me louder than voices, and that Doodle walk because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother.” This means that Doodle and the narrator relationship starts to build up but later turns into destructive. This happen when the

Brother showed him just how incapable he thought Doodle would be by taking him to see his coffin that he would have been buried in if he died. “One day I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him how we all had believed he would die.” (Hurst 3) Just the words that James Hurst wrote “how we all had believed he would die” shows how his family never believed Doodle would be anything. Doodle’s family did not ever give him a chance to prove how capable he was because he had a few issues with his health and he wasn’t as normal as other little boys his age. Doodle seems to be a very passionate person and it’s cool that a little kid like him could care so much and show so much emotion toward a bird like he did with the dead scarlet ibis that he found. “Now we were watching him through the front window, but he didn’t know it. His awkwardness at digging the hole with a shovel whose handle was twice as long as he was made us laugh, and we covered our mouths without hands so he wouldn’t hear.” (Hurst 7) This shows how cruel his family was because laughing at someone is rude and mean. Instead of them seeing the how cute it was that he cared so much about a bird they just thought he was awkward because the shovel was really big for him and her was burying a bird that he didn’t even know. His family is not the nicest most accepting between taking him to see

Throughout the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis” written by James Hurst, a theme of negative pride can be evident. This sense of pride is especially affiliated with the narrator, as the story revolves around his brother, who’s eventually downfall was a result of the narrator’s egotism. Overall, pride in this story is interpreted to be a negative thing. To illustrate, when the narrator is pulling his brother in a go-cart, he reflects, “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk” (Hurst 557). This piece of evidence shows negative pride, as the narrator is ashamed of his brother because he couldn’t do what normal kids could do. Despite it being a physical disability that Doodle wasn’t able

Most authors use the elements of fiction to create their short story. James Hurst writes a short story called, The Scarlet Ibis, in which he uses several elements of fiction. Hurst uses symbolism, theme, and conflict to develop his short story, The Scarlet Ibis. Hurst uses symbolism to create his short story, The Scarlet Ibis.

"The Scarlet Ibis" was written by James Hurst. This is a story about a boy who is born really weak. When he was born everyone thought that he was going to die. The dad had a small coffin made for the boy. The character Doodle can best be described as a thoughtful and creative person.