The Scarlet Ibis Setting Analysis

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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. The setting creates an environment in which the plot is plausible, which in turn allows the conditions of the narrator’s vulnerable pride to exist. The cause of the narrator’s threatened pride is created by Doodle’s physical condition. For example, the narrator is “Embarrassed at having a brother… that [Can’t] walk.” Now we know that Doodle suffers a heart problem because “The doctor [Says] that his weak heart… [Will] probably kill him, but it [Doesn’t].”(1) …show more content…

From these two statements, we can come to the consensus that Doodle suffers from a heart problem in the early nineteenth century. Since cardiology wasn’t very advanced in those times, there would be little to no treatment for Doodle’s condition. With nothing to medically help Doodle, the setting uses his disability to threaten the narrator’s pride. In addition, The main motivation for the narrator to fix Doodle finds it’s roots in the early nineteenth-century social prejudice against those who were different. For instance, the narrator tries to motivate Doodle to train by asking him if he “Want[s] to be different from everybody else when [He] starts school.”(4) When asked if it matters the brother says “It certainly does.”(4) This is

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