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Character analysis for the scarlet ibis story
Literary devices in scarlet ibis
Literary devices in scarlet ibis
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Doodle’s Determination
In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, Doodle is an ‘ugly duckling’ of a little boy and an invalid. Despised by, and an embarassment to his older brother,
Doodle is a seeming candidate for low self-esteem. He has no friends and rarely leaves the house. His older brother begins to take interest in Doodle’s physical progress and takes him under his wing. Through Doodle’s battle to earn his brothers respect he shows extreme courage ad determination.
Doodle is determined to learn to walk. His brother is ashamed of his physical inabilities, so he decides to teach him to walk. He takes Doodle outside and practices with him. In the beginning, Doodle becomes discouraged and insists that it is impossible. The doctors say he cannot walk and he believes this without question. As he begins to further progress, he practices without complaint and actually becomes more confident in himself. “... I’d paint for him a picture of us as old me, white-haired, him with a long white beard and me still pulling him around in (his) go-cart. This never failed to make him try again.” his brother recalls. Once Doodlle realizes that walking is is a feasible and attainable goal, he begins to do it for his own benefit, as well as his brother’s. Doodle is determined to please his brother. Throughout the time when Doodle does not have faith in his ability to walk, he persists anyway. This is because he wants to make his brother happy . As long as his brother is spending time with him, and it is still apparent to Doodle that it is because he cares, Doodle will do anything to maintain this relationship.Doodle doesn’t know of his brother’s selfish reasons to spend time with
In a restaurant, picture a young boy enjoying breakfast with his mother. Then suddenly, the child’s gesture expresses how his life was good until “a man started changing it all” (285). This passage reflects how writer, Dagoberto Gilb, in his short story, “Uncle Rock,” sets a tone of displeasure in Erick’s character as he writes a story about the emotions of a child while experiencing his mother’s attempt to find a suitable husband who can provide for her, and who can become a father to him. Erick’s quiet demeanor serves to emphasis how children may express their feelings of disapproval. By communicating through his silence or gestures, Erick shows his disapproval towards the men in a relationship with his mother as he experiences them.
In conclusion, Brother shows his self-interest in how he treats his younger brother. He treats his younger brother, Doodle, as something to ‘fix’ and he cannot accept his brother as he is. When Doodle finally learns to walk, Brother’s selfish need for a more ‘ideal’ little brother is not satisfied for long. Soon he demands a little brother who can run, jump, climb, swim, swing on vines, and row a boat. When he gives Doodle lessons for these activities, he does not do so for concern about Doodle wanting to be able to do them, but because he wants Doodle to be able to be a ‘normal’ brother.
Blood is thicker than water, but sometimes pride is thicker than both. Such is the case with James Hurst's "The Scarlet Ibis." This is a dramatic short story about two brothers, in which the older brother manipulates and is later responsible for the death of his younger brother, Doodle. These actions proved that he did not love Doodle.
(Support) He states, “ 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.” (166)(Textual support- 2). This shows that brother didn’t want to teach Doodle how to walk to help him, but he wanted Doodle to walk so Doodle wouldn’t embarrass him. Brother is selfish and doesn’t care about Doodle, he cares more about himself and this is a character trait for Brother that runs throughout the entire story. (Commentary)
The protection of pride can lead to dangerous actions. You don’t have t o look further than everyday arguments that hurt friendships. While this is example on the larger scale, there are some examples on a much smaller scale. In “The Scarlet Ibis” James Hurst uses the setting and the conflict to show that protecting pride can influence dangerous actions.
In “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, Doodle is an intelligent character. William “Doodle” Armstrong is a character who everybody thought was going to die. However, when Doodle lives on to see another day, he learns of the incredible world that his mind, but not necessarily his body, would be able to experience. Doodle’s first signs of intelligence is shown when the narrator describes his responsiveness. Doodle was able to respond to his name, and when he began to talk, he “talked so much that [they] all quit listening to what he said” (556). This description of Doodle’s earlier life shows his above-average intelligence because it emphasizes the extraordinary mental actions that Doodle was capable of, as opposed to what his physical well-being
The Scarlet Ibis bird symbolizes Doodle; this symbolism can be seen by the authors description of both Doodle’s and the Scarlet Ibis’s appearance after death. After the Scarlet Ibis fell from the bleeding tree his “long, graceful neck jerked twice into an S, then straightened out,” (Hurst 4) and he died. After Doodle’s death his brother finds “him huddled beneath a nightshade bush beside the road,” (Hurst 4) where he lay dead. The way Doodle fell made “his vermilion neck appear unusually long and slim,” (Hurst 4). Much like the long legs of the Scarlet Ibis, “his little legs bent sharply at the knees,” making them seem “so fragile, so thin,” (Hurst 4). This description of Doodle allows the reader to imagine him like the Scarlet Ibis, with his seemingly long neck and thin, fragile legs. Both Doodle and the Scarlet Ibis have this appearance after they fall to their death. Hurst utilizes very similar descriptive words when describing both the Scarlet Ibis and Doodle’s appearance after death, so that readers can better see the symbolism of the two.
In “The Scarlet Ibis,” written by James Hurst, Doodle, a boy born with health problems, experiences cruel actions from his older brother who wishes Doodle would have been born as normal as possible with no health conditions. As Doodle grows his older brother tries to teach him to be as normal as Doodle portrays to be capable to be, such as teaching him to walk, although this affects Doodle’s health severely, which eventually leads to his early death. The narrator in “The Scarlet Ibis” causes Doodle’s death by leaving Doodle in the rain, teaching him things that affects his health, and creating a sense of curiosity.
In the essay: “ ‘Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts”’, Bruno Bettelheim discusses how Cinderella is a story about the difficulties of sibling rivalry and the degraded heroine ending up on top of the siblings that oppressed her. Bettelheim argues that sibling rivalry is created when a child feels that they cannot win their parents love and esteem in comparison to his brothers or sisters. In addition he argues that every child feels that they deserve to be degraded at some point in their life. The concept of Oedipal guilt, his last point, has some intriguing details included in it, concepts of which could be disputed. However, the main focus of this essay is on how children justify the idea that they should be degraded, and because of the hardships they have faced, risen up and exalted like Cinderella was. He states that Cinderella relates very closely to the youth because they feel like they can relate to her situation more than the majority of people could.
“The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst has symbolic messages hidden in it everywhere, especially in the comparison of Doodle and the scarlet ibis these messages being to accept your capabilities and not over exert yourself. Like when we first see the bird on page 27, “At that moment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were uncoordinated, and amid much flapping and a spray of flying feathers, it tumbled down.” The bird, an exotic beauty (called that in the story), dies after making it all the way from South America to the narrator's home. This was the ibis’ fate. This relates to Doodle in a few ways but the most prominent is that they both worked hard to get somewhere. Earlier in the story, the narrator pushes his brother to learn to walk
In the story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst the Narrator is responsible for Doodle’s
In the “Prodigal”, the boy whom the speaker is addressing to yearns to accomplish his own goals by leaving his hometown behind and entering the urbanized world that is filled with endless opportunities and possibilities, including “[becoming] an artist of the provocative gesture”, “wanting the world and return carrying it”, and “[reclaiming] Main Street in a limo.” However, despite all these ambitious opportunities the boy wishes to pursue, he is ultimately unable to alter the perception of others who are the most familiar with his character. Rather, the people who are the most acquainted with the boy will perceive him with the same view as in the past. The thought of a newly changed boy that embraced a completely different identity while accomplishing several achievements, is incapable of affecting their perception of the past young boy from the county. This is illustrated when the speaker describes that even if the boy “stood in the field [he’d] disappear” and was still “aiming [his] eyes down the road” of opportunity, in the eyes of people who are most familiar with him, they will be unable to acknowledge this significantly changed individual. In complete contrast with those who are most familiar with him are others who are unfamiliar with his past. These individuals, whom the boy must have encountered while achieving his accomplishments,
trying to be like his father. He continues to emphasize this by adding how he constantly
The children couldn’t accept what they thought was so horrible. There was a lot of ignorance and carelessness portrayed throughout this short story. The theme of ungratefulness was revealed in this story; The author depicted how disrespecting someone can inturn feed you with information you may wish you never knew and how someone can do one wrong thing and it immediately erases all the good things a person did throughout their
When Doodle was up on the loft looking at a casket, his brother explained to him