The Wash Woman Character Analysis

Invidious and Acrimonious
In all short stories the main character displaces a sense of kindness, reliability, or hatred, and cruelty. The author portrays a character in the story that people can’t help but to feel attached to, or feel repulsed to think or read about. In the short story The Wash Woman by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Mr. Singer makes the readers believe that The Washwoman is a trustworthy character by showing her main quality of reliability. There are many stories where the character shows kindness, but on the contrary there are also many cases where the people in the book show only invidious and acrimonious
thoughts and actions. Throughout the short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, the author elucidates Mr.General Zaroff as a “bad” character by showing the reader of the things he had done in the past and what his plans were for Rainsford. In every story the author gives the characters features or

traits about their personality, whether they are trustworthy or erroneous characters. In the short story The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, the author portrays the older brother of Doodle as a so called “bad” brother, by displaying many acts of cruelty.
James Hurst wrote the short story, The Scarlet Ibis, that display the main character as cruel and selfish towards his younger brother Doodle. This character didn’t do anything for others, he only did something if he found a reason for the action to suffice his own needs. The author displays this action in the short story, “I hadn’t expected such an answer. ‘So I won’t have to haul you around all the time’” (388). This is a unerring example of his selfishness. The brother is just trying to get his younger brother, Doodle, ,to walk so he won't have to put in the effort of hauling him around. Also, in addition to the older brothers acts of selfishness he was thinking, “They did not know that I did it (helped Doodle walk) for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doole walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (389). The tendency of the older brothers egocentric actions had some good and bad consequences. Indubitably, the older brother helped Doodle walk and run, but he also made Doodle so tired he practically passed out. Throughout the story the brother displays these kinds of acts of selfishness.
In the short story The Scarlet Ibis the brother made Doodle do things he didn’t want to do. To stay in the “in” crowd people will do anything. even if it means disgruntling the friends close to that person. This short story is an exemplary example of this, in the book it says,”His hand, trembling, reached out, and when he touched the casket he screamed” (387). He only did this because he believed that, “there is within me a knot of cruelty borne by the steam of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at times I was mean to Doodle” (387). The brother must have believed that he was a mean brother so he wanted to prove it to himself. Brother is a cruel and mean character and this story displays this many times in the story. One time that sticks out more that others is when He left Doodle. “The knowledge that Doodle’s and my plans had come to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty within me awakened. I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind” (394). This explains what he was thinking when he left his brother to die in the rain. There was no thought of turning back to help him.
On the other hand, brother did do some things to help Doodle.

In the story when he left him in the rain he did go back for Doodle. “Finally, I went back and found him huddled beneath a red nightshade bush beside which were resting on his draw-up knees”(395). This shows that the brother does have a conscious and went back for his younger brother. Although that may not be the case. “I hadn’t run to far I became tired, and the flood of childish spite evanesced as well”(395). This shows that he didn’t go back for his brother, but for his own needs. He does not like to feel bad for the actions he takes. So he went back not for his brother but for his own needs.
In the short story The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, the author portrays the older brother of Doodle as a so called “bad” brother, by displaying many acts of cruelty. He showed no kind of selflessness, but only selfishness. He also made his younger brother do things he didn’t want to do and what he could not do. In the short story The Scarlet Ibis the older brother is a “ab”

brother.