Figurative Language In The Scarlet Ibis

The short story "The Scarlet Ibis" is a about a young boy who battles with caul and how he begins to overcome his limitations with his older brother. The story takes place in the south around the time of World War One. The author James Hurst uses figurative language; such as personification, metaphors, similes, and imagery; to create the setting of the story.

The author James Hurst develops the setting by using personification to help the reader imagine the scene. In "The Scarlet Ibis " it is stated "Summer was dead, but autumn had not yet been born" (Hurst 257). Hurst uses personification to tell that summer was at an end but fall, autumn, wasn't there yet. The time of the season creates the setting of when in the year that part of the story begins.

Hurst also uses metaphors to help the reader feel the surroundings that the setting gives. The text says "Doodle was my brother and he was going to cling to me no matter what I did so I dragged him across the burning cotton field to share with him the only beauty I knew, Old Woman Swamp" (Hurst 259). The metaphor burning cotton, not actually on fire, but a very hot time of the day, at around noon, sets the time for the setting. The quote talks about the cotton fields and also tells the place of the

In the text it is stated "He might, as long as he lived, lie on the rubber sheet in the center of the bed in front of the bedroom where the white marquisette curtains billowed out in the afternoon sea breeze, rustling like palmetto fronds" (Hurst 258). In the simile the setting is in the bedroom area and gives great imagery as well to develop the scene and setting by describing the curtains as palmetto fronds, a fan like plant, which were shaking back and forth. In this quote James hints that they are near the ocean on the coast furthermore providing information about the setting of the short