“For a long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain.” (page 6). These are the parting words of James Hearst from his short story, The Scarlet Ibis. The line describes the moment in which the narrator cradles the body of his dead brother, William Armstrong, more commonly known as Doodle. In the story, Doodle dies of a combination of a heart condition, fatigue, pneumonia, and the Spanish flu. He is sickly and frail at birth, and is told, “with his weak heart this strain [learning how to crawl] would probably kill him.” (page 1). This heart condition means that Doodle is unable to stand long periods of physical strain. During the story, his brother pushes him very hard to learn how