...The Scarlet Ibis Have you ever let your pride overcome who you are? Pride allows us to enhance the way we act and look. However, it can cause us to look down upon others when things don’t turn out the way we want it. For instance, “ The Scarlet Ibis” shows how pride can motivate us to strive for achievements and still be the source of harm towards ourselves and our loved ones. The story is told through the brother’s eyes in which he continuously persists his brother, Doodle, into doing “normal kid things,” despite Doodle’s physical limitations. “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is a story that revolves around pride. To begin with, Doodle’s brother wanted to teach Doodle how to live like a “normal boy.” Doodle’s brother was resolute as he...
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...“Pride is the mother of arrogance” (Toba Beta). Pride is a feeling that everyone has felt in their lifetime, whether it be because they finally solved a question in math or because they finally graduated from college. That’s pride in it’s best form, but then there’s also the bad kind of pride, the kind mentioned in the quote above, that leads to arrogance and can sometimes be harmful. The tale The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst is a great example of how pride can be harmful. The Scarlet Ibis revolves around two brothers, Doodle (who is disabled), and his older brother, the narrator. In the story, the narrator tries to teach Doodle to do things like an abled person. He succeeded with teaching Doodle to walk, so then his ego/pride starts growing...
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...Throughout the short story of “The Scarlet Ibis” James Hurst portrays that pride can be a constructive or a destructive thing. During this story, the character Brother uses his pride in ways that are helpful to Doodle, but in ways that are also harmful. As readers, people come to know the character Doodle as a delicate yet a beautiful being. There are things that others need to be careful of when with Doodle. There was “a long list of don’ts [that] went with him, all of which [Brother] ignored once [they] got out of the house.” This quote shows that Brother knew Doodle had limits, but decided to ignore them out of pride. Also, once Brother taught Doodle how to walk, there was a sense inside of him that made him believe that he could accomplish...
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...“The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is about William Armstrong, also known as Doodle, who had a physical and mental condition. When he was born William’s brother was six years old, and when William died his brother was thirteen. The story is called “The Scarlet Ibis” because the family saw a bird dying in their backyard which was far away from its native land, and William died away from his home. Mr. Hurst was born in North Carolina at a farm by the sea. He studied singing and in Italy and he became a banker. During his thirty four years as a banker he also published a few short stories including “The Scarlet Ibis”. I personally did not like how the story went but I do like how Mr. Hurst wrote it. I also like how he referred the scarlet ibis...
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...The Scarlet Ibis by: James Hurst In “The Scarlet Ibis”, the older brother is coaching his younger brother, who has physical disabilities, on how to fit in, mostly for his own sake. The story brings up all sorts of questions such as, why is it that we sometimes fear people who are different? Why do many people think it's so important to fit in? If someone doesn't mind being different, why do we often still pressure them to conform? This story shows that pushing others too hard to fit in can end in tragedy. Most people think living life a certain way is the most important thing. When they see someone acting a strange way or a way that is different, they react negatively. They get confused because they aren’t used to people not caring about how...
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...“The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst places a large focus on humanity and the humane treatment of others. In this short story, the narrator mistreats his younger brother in order to make him more like normal boys who can play, run, and swim. However, this backfires as his younger brother Doodle dies from overexertion because the narrator pushes him past his limits. In “The Scarlet Ibis”, the absence of humanity is a large component and is portrayed in the way Doodle is treated by the narrator. In this story, the narrator’s great pride and lack of humanity is what causes Doodle’s death. Because he is so focused on making Doodle like the other children, the narrator forgets that Doodle has feelings and shortcomings. The narrator is “embarrassed...
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...James Hurst’s short story, “The Scarlet Ibis,” has a theme, pride is egregious, which Hurst demonstrates through a series of quotes with the main ideas of offering help only due to pride, the belief of infallibility, and pushing someone farther than their limits. The theme can be first expressed when Brother only teaches Doodle to walk only because of his pride. After Brother teaches Doodle to walk, he reflects upon his reasons of doing so in the excerpt,“They did not know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother,”(Hurst, 4). In the previously mentioned situation pride is egregious because Brother is embarrassed about Doodles...
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...The Two Meanings of Pride The story, the “Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is about a young boy teaching his physically disabled brother, Doodle, how to become “normal.” The story surrounds the most powerful emotion, pride. The narrator was full of pride for his brother at times when he abled him to learn new things. The story expresses the idea that it is good to be full of pride for others, however, pushing people past their limits can be harmful. In the “Scarlet Ibis,” Doodle was pushed over his physical limit and suffered consequences. Several quotes in the story draw attention to the emotional theme, pride. Pride comes along with embarrassment. “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who...
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...The Scarlet Ibis," is a short story written by James Hurst. This story is about the life of a young boy named Doodle and his older brother, the Narrator. In the story, Doodle is crippled for life. As Doodle grows older his older brother's pride leads him to teach Doodle how to walk. James Hurst uses foreshadowing and conflict to show Doodle's empathy and loyalty. The use of foreshadowing shows how he is empathetic because he can feel empathy for something like the ibis. For example, when the family watches the scarlet ibis die, Doodle says, "I'm going to bury it." This shows that Doodle is caring enough to care for an animal he has no relation to in the story. This is because Doodle could reflect the scarlet ibis, and what was happening to the ibis upon himself. In addition, Doodle's mother would not allow him to even touch the bird, yet Doodle disobeys and buries the scarlet ibis. This reveals that his empathy for the ibis was so grand that he disobeyed his mother. The reason why is that Doodle treated...
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...The Sharing of a Common Theme “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst and “The Interlopers” by Saki both share a common theme ‘appearance versus reality’. Though both of the articles have two completely different plots, they share an idea that is displayed throughout both stories. The theme may seem to have different levels of importance or appear in different parts of the stories, but it is present in both no matter what. Here is an example of how “The Scarlet Ibis” and “The Interlopers” both have the theme ‘appearance vs. reality’. The theme of appearance versus reality is displayed in the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by illustrating Big Brother’s disappointment at having a disabled brother transformed to embarrassment and selfish desire of...
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...In “The Scarlet Ibis”, written by James Hurst, and “The Cask of Amontillado”, written by Edgar Allan Poe, the characters in both works are the theme of Appearance versus Reality. The authors use Appearance versus Reality by revealing the cruel intentions of Montresor and the reality of how Doodle learned to walk. Both “The Scarlet Ibis” and “The Cask of Amontillado” are influenced by Appearance versus Reality as the plot progresses in both of these stories. The process of maturation in Doodle and Brother demonstrate the theme of Appearance versus Reality in “The Scarlet Ibis”. When Doodle was born, his family and the doctor presumed that he would not live to experience a full life. Even his own mother did not think that he would remain...
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...Literary Analysis: “The Scarlet Ibis” Can pride affect others in a bad way? The topic of the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the narrator helps his brother Doodle(William Armstrong) to accomplish things no one thought was possible because of his bad heart. But in the end he pressured his brother too much and Doodle dies, all because he wanted pride from it. The theme adolescents that pride can both be a good and a bad thing, which you can see through the plot of the story. The narrator reflects on his actions and realizes how selfish he was towards Doodle. In one line it shows that the narrator is planning on teaching doodle more but he saw it as his own victory instead of Doodles victory, “Once I had succeeded in teaching Doodle...
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...specific message or moral for the reader to remember. In “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst the theme is to always have faith in someone’s potential and abilities, even if the odds are against them. The specific writing techniques James Hurst uses in his short story are foreshadowing, interesting dialogue, and inner conflict. The author uses foreshadowing to help prepare the reader for what is going to happen later in the story. During the story this is shown through the narrator’s feelings about Doodle, “I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death.” (Hurst 3) The narrator is questioning his relationship with his brother Doodle, and how much he...
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...In the “Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst; it tells us how the narrator; also known as brother, has a wanting for his little brother; doodle, to become normal. In this story by James Hurst; it shows how pride can be a terrible quality. Pride causes some people to become selfish and make bad choices; which is shown through the narrator brother. Pride can take over someone's emotions. This could be opinionated, but in this story it shows plenty of examples on how pride can be a negative quality.As the story progresses the pride of brother grows stronger. With the strength of his pride Brother finds guilt. Mainly because he knows he isn't helping Doodle just to help him, he is doing it for himself. Which he explains in the following quote, “ They...
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...guilt in which a character is haunted by his past. In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” James Hurst employs flashback and mood to create the emotion of guilt that haunts the narrator. Hurst utilizes flashback by giving a sense of guilt emitting from the narrator. Throughout the story, the author gives examples of the narrator’s selfish actions, which is how he treats his crippled brother, Doodle. Then, Hurst portrays mood by writing the narrator’s thoughts of what horrible actions the narrator did to Doodle. The narrator feels ashamed of having a disabled brother, and feels the need to push Doodle to become “normal”, and this pressure makes the narrator look back and feel guilt. One way the narrator represents guilt is through flashback. Throughout the...
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