Thesis Statement In Hurst's Short Story '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.

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.

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

Have your parents ever told you that you needed to improve at something? It could be a sport, activities, or even how well you do in school. This is a vile thing for parents to do to their children. Sometimes parents just need to back up a few steps and let you be yourself. The same can happen with an older sibling! That is the case in The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst. The narrator of this story has a younger brother called Doodle, who has some health issues. Big brother pushes little brother to be better than he is. In The Scarlet Ibis, Doodle strives for the goals that his brother sets for him for many reasons, which reflects the conflict in the story.

Firstly, James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis” is a dismal story due to the figurative language that is used. This figurative language forces the reader to become sympathetic to the characters, and therefore connected to them.

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

After Doodle dies, Brother throws his body on top of him crying and “sheltering [his] fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain.” Brother grows up with Doodle, teaches him how to walk, and is proud of how much he has accomplished. Brother even calls Doodle as his, showing possessiveness. Nevertheless, he feels guilty, that he was the reason his brother died. The act of sheltering Doodle also shows his guilt because previously, Brother did not protect him or show his love. Nonetheless, now that he is dead, Brother is protecting Doodle because he had not done so before. Another example where a remorseful tone is present is as Brother is hearing the oriole singing, he feels sorrowful as the song “seems to die up in the leaves.” The tone the author sets is opposite to what emotions are typically felt about a bird singing. Instead of making Brother feel happy, it is the opposite, creating a feeling of sorrow and remorse. Hurst’s word choice contributes to this. The word “die” gives off a negative connotation, seeming as if the happiness of the song is fading away in the leaves of the tree. The elm tree also has a direct relationship with Doodle, and this reminder causes sadness and guilt in Brother. Clearly, the tone is impactful in conveying Brother’s

¨It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one that was possibly not all there was

At the beginning of the text, we see that Doodle is the Narrator disabled little brother. The main character hate Doodle because he can't do anything for himself and gets all of the attention. Because of this, the Narrator doesn't like Doodle and even stated, “I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow.” All of this tells us that the main character doesn't love or even like his brother at all because you wouldn't be hating on your brother or even planning to kill him if you liked him. However, at the end of the story when Doodle dies in

Both the scarlet ibis and Doodle were delicate, weak, and unable to survive. The narrator became determined to teach Doodle to walk which allowed Doodle to become stronger. As the story progresses, the narrator feels the need to push Doodle more in order to make him like everyone else. The second insight to the scarlet ibis and selfish pride is when Doodle dies because the narrator pushes him too far and after realizing Doodle is dead the narrator says, “I began to weep, and the tear-blurred vision in red before me looked very familiar. "Doodle!" I screamed above the pounding storm and threw my body to the earth above his. For a long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain.” The narrator's pride came in the way and caused Doodle’s death. The narrator was proud of being able to achieve something that no one believed would be possible and got carried

There is a very powerful conflict in the book about Brother’s treatment of Doodle. The quote earlier in the second example shows the root of this problem. He states; “Doodle only walked because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (559). His actions are further explained when he narrates; “There is within me ( and with sadness I have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, as much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of destruction” (557). This internal struggle causes an emotional power struggle within Brother. On page 563, the boys have a falling out over how hard Brother is pushing Doodle in order to be ‘normal’ for school’, with the quote directly quoting pride “they don’t speak (what words can solder stolen pride?)” (563). The heinous action that triggered the falling out was Doodle falling over from physical exhaustion after being pushed to the limit of his body and shoved a little more. Brother acts as though Doodle’s physical failing directly affects him. Due to the behaviors seen in the former two examples, Brother and Doodle’s pride is seen through conflicts with each

In “The Scarlet Ibis,” James Hurst uses the ibis as a symbol for Doodle in order

That is what the author is trying to tell us in the story. In the text, the narrator struggles with loving who Doodle really is. Instead, he is constantly trying to change him. In the text it says, “ I decided to double my efforts, to make that list drive and reach our pot of gold. I made him swim until he turned blue and row until he couldn't lift an oar.”(27) In this quote, the narrator is trying to change who Doodle is so he won’t be any different from all the other kids when he starts school. Eventually the narrator pushes Doodle to change so much, it leads to Doodle’s death. On page 28, is says, “The knowledge that Doodle's and my plans had come to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty within me awakened. I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind with a wall of rain dividing us.”(28) In this part in the story, the narrator and Doodle are running to their home due to the bad weather. And when the two of them are running home, Doodle falls behind due fatigue from the narrator making him swim to improve his physical strength. The narrator, as cruel as he is, left his brother to die all

Self-pride can control many human decisions. In this case, Brother is the slave of pride. Brother wanted a brother to run, jump, breath, and climb with, but Doodle couldn’t. His expectations for his brother were not met and Brother thought to kill Doodle. During the story Brother realized, “But all of us have something or someone to be proud of, and Doodle was mine... that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death” (Hurst 354) He explains that his pride was based on his brother, and this could be a wonderful yet terrible thing because this could lead to life or death. His selfish actions were based on his reputation, and what people would think of him with a crippled brother. Pride is good or bad, destructive or joyful. This symbolizes how people live their lives according to their self-pride. In this story, pride was destructive, his pride was at risk because he had a brother you couldn’t even stand: Therefore it motivated him to push his brother until he died. Embarrassment, and pride both play a factor in how we live our lives; additionally in the story relates to how humans change for better or for