Scarlet Ibis

“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 long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of the rain" (225). The narrator shows how he felt when he finds his brother Doodle lying dead. The author of The Scarlet Ibis uses emotions to illustrate the protagonist’s personality. On a farm in 1911 during World War I a handicapped child named William Armstrong is born and is not thought to survive. However, miraculously he does and his brother renames him to Doodle, and teaches him how to walk because he is embarrassed of having a handicapped brother. His parents see the ability. Walk as a huge improvement, but the brother pushes Doodle to his limits eventually killing him. In the short story The Scarlet Ibis, the author effectively uses elements of short stories to illustrate the protagonist. The author James Hurst of The Scarlet Ibis uses characterization, mood, and conflict to illustrate the protagonist. The first way that the author illustrates the protagonist is through characterization.

The author uses characterization to effectively utilize the elements of The Scarlet Ibis to illustrate the protagonist. First, the narrator forces Doodle to touch his coffin to purposely make him frightened. This event shows the cruelty of the narrator to his brother because of his disability. Secondly, the narrator was crying when the family saw Doodle walk due to the fact that he only did it for pride."What are you crying for?" asked Daddy, but I couldn't answer, they did not know that I did it for myself; that pride whose slave I was, spoke to me louder th...

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...rough the storm when he knows he cannot. The protagonist will push his brother to the extremes even in life or death situations, because he cares about his pride more than his brother’s life. Clearly the author illustrates the protagonist through conflict in The Scarlet Ibis.

In the Scarlet Ibis, a short story by James Hurst, the author effectively uses elements of short stories to illustrate the character. First, the protagonist is illustrated as a reforming character through characterization forcing Doodle to touch his coffin and teaching him how to walk for his own pride. Secondly, mood illustrates the protagonist by the setting in the beginning, and Doodle's death at the end. Finally, the protagonist is illustrated by conflicts showing that he will not give up for the sake of his pride. Clearly elements of short stories can illustrate a character's personality.