The Scarlet Ibis Rhetorical Analysis

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Gloom. While having “Pride” in recent years has been a staple in society and seen as a great thing we all should be reminded of the troubles pride causes, this idea and the gloomy pride causes is shown in James Hurst’s popular short story, “The Scarlet Ibis”. “The Scarlet Ibis” is a short story about a brother with crippling heart disease. The main character, only introduced as “brother” wanted a younger brother but when his brother was born crippled he is determined to make him walk in order to be “normal”. The author of the story uses many techniques to entertain her readers. In “The Scarlet Ibis,” the author James Hurst uses flashbacks, character thoughts, and foreshadowing to enhance the story’s gloomy mood. Hurst uses flashbacks to create …show more content…

“Time with all of its changes is grounded away—and I remember Doodle” (Hurst 14-15). This line illustrates the mood of the story because it creates questions for the reader: what happened to Doodle? This line also shows the reader how the rest of the story will be formatted in a flashback. The mood is especially evident in the words “Time with all of its changes is grounded away” which is essentially saying all the changes don't matter in the end. Later, the author uses the same flashback to illustrate gloom. At the end of the book we see how all of this plays out when Doodle is falling behind his brother on the way home when then all of a sudden he is gone. “Doodle I screamed above the pounding storm and threw my body to the Earth above him for a long time, it seemed like forever I lay there crying” (Hurst 390-394). This shows a drastic mood of sadness. The main character has lost his brother in the storm and he falls down to his chest and cries. This proves a gloomy mood by truly showing the extent of the sorrow the character has for his

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