Some people are selfish in such a way that affects only their own selves, but others’ selfishness can hurt those they care about. One of these such people is Brother in “The Scarlet Ibis”. In James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis”, Brother is selfish and only teaches Doodle to walk to benefit himself.
Brother is too engulfed in his selfish desire for a ‘better’ brother that he does not give Doodle a chance to rest. “I made him swim until he turned blue, and row until he couldn’t lift an oar.” This excerpt shows the reader how ruthless Brother is in the training he has set up for Doodle. Brother appears to care more about him being capable of doing these ‘fun’ things than his brother having fun doing them does. “Success lay at the end of the summer like a pot of gold” When Brother says this, he relays how he is greedy for a better brother and will do anything to get what he wants.
Brother is selfish because he is not concerned about how the rigorous training is negatively affecting Doodle. “… Doodle began to look feverish, and Mama felt his forehead. At night he didn't sleep well, and sometimes he had nightmares, and I touched him and said, "Wake up, Doodle. Wake up.” Even though Brother is lucid of the fact that the training is making Doodle unwell, he continues to press Doodle to train harder. Every day, Brother makes Doodle train, even if he does not wish to. Brother is someone that Doodle always looks up to. Brother uses this to persuade Doodle that he must not be different.
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.
In both "Sonny’s Blues" and "The Rich Brother", one of the two brothers encounters success through his life whereas the younger one does not follow the same path and constantly disappoints the other. Pete and Sonny’s brother unconditionally love their own brothers for numerous different reasons and they feel an obligation to the other. They believe that it is their duty to take care of Donald and Sonny, but at the same time they cannot or at least in the beginning understand what drives their brothers in life and moreover the reasons that push them to make the choices they are constantly making. Although Sonny’s bad decisions put him through a lot, he finally reinvents himself and proves to his brother his value. Unfortunately Donald does not evolve enough to meet his brother’s expectations. Both young brothers fail in their lives but for very different reasons. Sonny’s drugs addiction puts him to jail and Donald’s quest for the faith of his soul results in many issues with Pete. Nevertheless, Sonny’s brother sees and witnesses what his brother is really capable of, while sadly for Donald, Pete definitely cannot live with his brother’s way of living. "Sonny's Blues" and "The Rich Brother" are perfect examples of how brothers relationships are: full of love but paved with insurmountable obstacles at the same time. At the end of Sonny's story, both brothers can finally "see" each other and are able to live together, while unfortunately for Donald and Pete, it is impossible for them to reach an understanding.
The two characters come to the realization that they do share a brotherly bond, and that the narrator cares deeply for his brother even after all the time apart. The narrator says, “I don’t give a damn wh...
Two people with two completely different characteristics have something alike. Both Dally and Johnny are mentally tough because of their parents. Johnny and Dally’s parents both do not care for them and could care less about them. For example, during Dally’s childhood he went to jail, been in a gang, and has been in many fights and his dad still would not care for him even if he won the lottery. Dally also talks about his dad's disgrace towards him in the car with Johnny and Ponyboy, “‘ Shoot, my dad don’t give a hang whether I’m in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in a gutter...’”(88). Dally could easily live without his dad and he does for the most part. Dally just hangs around with his friends and stays at their place. Similarly, Johnny's parents use him like a rag doll to blow off steam, “his father always beating him up”(14). The gang knows what happenes in Johnny’s house. Once Ponyboy was witnessing, “Johnny take a whipping with a two-by-four from his old man”(33). Ponyboy talks about how loud and mean Johnny's mom is and,“you can...
of a little boy and an invalid. Despised by, and an embarassment to his older 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)
“They did not know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices; and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother.” (Hurst 50). This supports the claim that this is Brother’s fault, because if he were never ashamed of Doodle in the first place, he wouldn’t be given all of the extra stress running has brought his body. The narrator was very strict, and hard on Doodle because he wanted a brother that was “all there.” Brother would have been much nicer, and understanding if his decision to teach Doodle to do things like the other children was based on
James Hurst is the author of the heart breaking short story entitled “The Scarlet Ibis”. “The Scarlet Ibis” is a short story about two brothers; one brother is healthy, while the other is physically handicapped. The short story is centered on the idea that the older, healthier brother’s selfishness and pride ultimately led to the death of his younger brother, Doodle. Numerous quotes throughout the story demonstrate Hurst’s use of symbolism and foreshadowing to portray and predict Doodle’s untimely and heartbreaking death.
In the first place, for any brother, embarrassment affects pride and selfishness. In the Scarlet Ibis, a character name Doodle can not walk and Brother, Doodle’s brother, is embarrassed because of it, so sets off to teach Doodle to walk himself. “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed of having a brother of that
The allegory “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is about this child Doodle that was handicap and his older brother tried to help him learn how to run,walk, and to swim, but Doddle older brother had so much pride and was broken that it block his site of sense of he left Doodle in the storm. First, you should know is that Doodle mentally is there, but his physical activities he has a tough time dealing with, so his other brother left him in the storm to die. In my opinion, brothers should Furthermore, brothers should not leave each other behind in any situation. Therefore, I believe it teaches the lesson that too much pride is bad because you can hurt the people closest to you and regret it.
The second reason is because when he was a kid he wanted to smother his brother because he couldn't do anything. He wanted a brother that could go outside with him and go to the pond.
The character Brother from the "Scarlet Ibis" is a very controlled person. Love, family, nature, and intelligences pushes him to keep moving forward, but he is also pushed by some difficult things such as shame, guilt, and insecurities. Most of this story's focus is Doodles life, from birth to death. When reading the story, the reader may notice all the things Brother did wrong rather than what he did right. Additionally, when you're finished reading the story, Brother probably left a negative impact on you because as a narrator he highlighted all the things he did wrong. It's hard to really judge brother as a character from different perspectives because he only chooses to bring out one side which is only in terms of his connections and relationship with doodle. Brother "wanted more than anything else someone to race to Horsehead landing, someone to box with, … [he] wanted a brother" (430). Once Doodle was born it started to become clear that he was only capable of laying on the floor and crawling backwards. Brother said, "It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all
The short story, "The Rich Brother," by Tobias Wolff represents the same concept that everyday people all over the world encounter. This portrays how having siblings can be an enormous part of a persons life. The rivalry between siblings is often very competitive, but at the same time similar to magnets. When they are not connected it may seem they are independent and whole, but when examined closely it is obvious they are really relying on each other to function properly. Although Pete and Donald's life are separate and completely different, they are in fact very dependent on each other.
In his speech, “Brother’s keeper,” Eugene Debs argues that he takes care of his brother because it leads brothers can have a better life while he is being under a moral obligation. He makes a good point because he shows morality by putting others need before his own.
He taught Friday to do these things because he cared for him. He wanted Friday to be able to support himself in more than one way in case something was to happen to one of his food resources. It is an older brother’s duty to teach siblings how to be independent of others. He does this because, more than likely, there won’t always be somebody around to take care of him his whole life.