Dante Alighieri once said, "Avarice, envy, pride, three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all on Fire." In the short story "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst, it shows how pride can be beneficial in some ways, and harmful in other ways. The story starts out as the narrator of the story has a recollection of his past when his younger brother Doodle was still alive. The narrator tells how everyone believed Doodle is crippled mentally and physically. However, Doodle is a normal human being mentally, but has some difficulties physically. The narrator wants Doodle to become a "normal" boy, so he teaches him to practically all the activities any boy Doodle's age would do. One day, Doodle and the narrator were playing in the fields. A large storm came and both had to run home before it became too hard to handle. Doodle started running after his brother, but couldn't withstand it, and eventually, his stamina died down and had to rest. The narrator felt ticked off by Doodle and deserted him. A few minutes later, the narrator discovered Doodle under a tree, blood trickling from his mouth, dead. In the short story "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst, it shows how pride can be beneficial in some ways, and harmful in other ways.
Pride of the narrator teaches a physically deprived little boy Doodle how to walk and gives him the same amenities as every other normal child. The pride of the narrator, "I [he] am going to teach Doodle how to walk" (170). Pride, in this instance, gives the narrator enough courage and vigor to help another human being in a positive way. The world needs more people such as the narrator, who is willing to benefit other's lives in a tenderhearted way, to make another's life better and happier. For example, "It's so pretty, so pretty, pretty, pretty" (170). One's pride can truly take the simple pleasures in life and make someone happy. The narrator does a simple task by taking his brother down to the swamp. By that action, Doodle is enthralled in happiness because he sees something he has never seen before. Having pride can be beneficial in many ways; however, having too much pride can be pernicious.
In the story, the narrator's pride sometimes takes him over and eventually kills his brother Doodle. At the end of the story, the narrator "
as I [He] lay sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain" (176).
The short story “The Scarlet Ibis”, by James Hurst was about a boy named William Armstrong, and his brother. William Armstrong was crippled when he was born and he cannot walk. His brother than calls him doodle, because that name would fit him better. But as Doodle got older, and every time his brother has to go somewhere, he would have to take doodle with him too. His brother got annoyed so he taught doodle how to walk. Doodle’s brother didn’t teach doodle how to walk because he felt sorry for him, but because of his reputation.
In August Wilson’s drama, “Fences,” a man named Troy struggles with feelings of unfulfilled dreams and extreme pride. Troy is unable to come to terms with his own fallacies throughout the play, and he fails to see the world through other points of view. He becomes prideful and arrogant because he feels he knows exactly how the world works, or should work, and he inadvertently destroys the lives of everyone around him. Troy’s pride causes him to believe dreams and hopes are useless in the real world. This belief causes him to ruin his own son’s dreams and causes his wife to despise him for the rest of his life. Pride is a harmful thing. Being too prideful can ruin one’s own life and the lives of his or her loved ones.
James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis” showed two brothers battling conflicting emotions simultaneously. Brother kills Doodle by letting his pride take control. Towards the end of the story Brother begins to realize, but it is too late. Pride is definitely a bad thing in this short story.
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.
For example, Aunt Nicey demonstrated pride by proclaiming that Doodle would live, while everybody else thought that he would die. The narrator remarks that everyone thought that Doodle would die at an early age, “everybody except Aunt Nicey” (555). In other words, Aunt Nicey had hope and had remained doubtless of Doodle living. Aunt Nicey believes that Doodle has great potential and felt proud of Doodle accomplishing the thing everyone initially believed as impossible. As for this, it displays the positive and wonderful aspect of pride. In contrast to Aunt Nicey, however,Brother’s egoistic statements introduce his narcissistic, self absorbed, and immature nature. Clenched to his conceited thoughts, Brother remarks, “I began to believe in my own infallibility and I prepared a terrific development program for him”(559). In other words, the narrator believes that because he taught Doodle to walk, he convinced himself that nothing was beyond his reach. The significance of this statement captures the section in the story where his prideful roots begin to uncover and lead to destruction and hurt by making wrongful decisions. On the other hand, with the intention to please Brother, whom he looks up to, Doodle feels honored and a sense of pride when he sees Brother gratified with his physical improvements and exploits. For this
Michael Jordan once said, “My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn the perceived weakness into a strength.” In the “Scarlet Ibis,” author James Hurst uses indirect characterization and an interesting theme of turning a weakness into a strength to create a successful and well written piece of literature. Doodle is the main character of Scarlet Ibis and was born with a disability and was predicted to live for a short amount of time. Doodle overcame his weakness with perseverance and with the help of his big brother. James Hurst did very well creating an entertaining story with indirect characterization and with an amusing theme.
In the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis”, the narrator is a horrific brother. The reader knows that the narrator is a bad brother when Brother renames him Doodle. Brother automatically thinks that his brother is so invalid that he decides to rename his brother with an underprivileged name. Brother looks down on Doodle rapidly before even giving him a chance. The narrator also shows that Doodle was supposed to die meaning a coffin was made for him. Brother then threatens Doodle to touch the coffin and doesn’t let him leave the area until the deed was done. Throughout the story, Brother finds every way to possibly torture the little life that Doodle has left to live.
vanity, pride, and self - knowledge intervenes in the development of the virtue of the characters,
In “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst pride is shown as a terrible but wonderful thing. Pride can come from selfishness, in Brothers case or it can come from wonderous actions. Also, pride may lead to joy for a short period of time, when Doodle learned to walk. Then, pride inevitably lead to death, guilt, and regret for Brother. Therefore, the use of pride throughout “The Scarlet Ibis” is shown heavily creating and destroying dreams by Doodle achieving athleticism and living the best life he could, but this also causing his premature death.
In the story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the narrator's relationship with Doodle, his brother, is more cruel than caring. For example, the narrator as a young child makes plans to kill Doodle by smothering him with a pillow because he is delicate and he is possibly not all there. Even though the narrator is young , it is sinful to want to kill one's one own disabled little brother. The narrator does not want to accept his brother for who he is and believes that Doodle is a disappointment. Furthermore, he leaves his fragile brother in the storm by himself even after Doodle begs him not to leave. The narrator has a hateful streak and does not take pay heed to the words of his frail brother, because of his egoism and pride. The narrator
“The doctor said that his weak heart this strain would probably kill him, but it didn’t.” “The Scarlet Ibis,” by James Hurst, reveals a tragic tale of yearning for acknowledgement and ending the embarrassment being shined by the narrator's disabled brother. This short story conveys how pride can possess a positive and negative effect on a person. Hurst uses characterization, conflict, and foreshadowing to develop the theme for, “The Scarlet Ibis.”
Doodle has an older brother who feels shame towards Doodle. People believe that he would not live long since his heart is weak. Doodle, the little brother, could not do much due to his weak heart. The theme is about pride since the brother did many things for Doodle because of his pride. The pride of the brother had been very strong. In the short story, The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, the theme of pride revealed when the brother decided to teach Doodle how to walk and he does not give up on teaching Doodle how to walk.
Doodle was a boy destined to die from the beginning of his life. He was born with an unknown heart defect so almost everyone thought he would not live to be more than one year old. Even his own brother (the narrator) didn't think he would live long at first. One day he saw Doodle smile and then he realized that he was sane. From then on, all he tried to do was help Doodle be normal by giving him lessons on things like how to walk and swim. At the end of the story the narrator runs away from Doodle after one of the lessons because he is angry that he will not be ready for school. When Doodle is alone and far away from his brother he dies. The brother felt bad and blamed himself for Doodle's death, but it was not his fault. The narrator was not responsible for Doodle's death because he was only a young boy when Doodle was born, Doodle’s death was an accident and no one wanted him to die, and because Doodle
All too frequently it seems that modern writers take the imperfections of human nature and romanticize these flaws so as to make their readers more at ease about such matters. Not so in Jack London's graphic short story entitled “To Build A Fire”. In this poignant tale, the author implements plot emphasis and internal conflicts in order to teach the reader a sharp lesson regarding pride and the dangers that accompany it. Amidst the string of events in Mr. London's tragedy, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the rising action, which goes on for quite some time. Doubtless the author placed such emphasis in order to show the reader that pride does not always have an immediate negative outcome, although eventually consequences will catch up
My presentation will be focusing on pride, and how having pride in yourself is very important, until it becomes excessive. With this in mind I will also be discussing how the characters Oedipus and Macbeth can provide insight to this topic from the works “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles and “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare respectively. While these two characters may not seem very similar at first, in both of their cases, their pride became excessive, leading to their eventual downfall.