Guilt In The Scarlet Ibis

We all feel guilt at some point in our lives. The narrator in “The Scarlet Ibis” has felt guilt for quite a while. In the story “The Scarlet Ibis”, we learn about the narrator’s perspective on what happened to the character Doodle, the narrator’s younger brother.
The narrator states “But all of us must have something to be proud of, and Doodle had become mine.” He then goes on to explain how pride it both a wonderful and terrible thing that bears the vines of life and death. The narrator says this, because he himself, let pride get in the way. When Doodle was born, the narrator was embarrassed that his little brother was not able to walk. So he began to help Doodle out, by helping him stand. Eventually, Doodle is able to stand on

his own, as well as able to walk. The narrator starts getting excited and starts letting his pride take over. In the end, the narrator ends up pushing Doodle too far, which ends up killing him. Back to the narrator’s quote, he says this because he has experienced the tragedy of becoming too prideful himself. Whereas pride can make you feel good, it can also make others, and eventually you, feel sad.
Speaking of eventually making yourself feel sad, the narrator has in fact been impacted by the death of Doodle. Yet, not in a positive way. He has learned not to let his pride get out of his control. Sure, he had to learn the hard way, but at least he learned. The death of his younger brother may have also made it to where the narrator is scared to help anyone else. With the guilt he felt since the death of his own brother, he won’t want to take chances to help someone and feel that guilt again.
Moving onto theme. The theme of this story it that certain pride, mainly selfish, can cause more harm than it can cause good. The story represents this theme by the fact that the narrator gets too prideful with his brother, which ends up hurting Doodle. At the end of the story, when the narrator and Doodle are running home to escape the storm, the narrator ends up running too fast for Doodle to catch up. This is turn cause Doodle