Character Analysis Of Brother In The Scarlet Ibis

Character Analysis of Brother from “The Scarlet Ibis”
Why do siblings tend to argue? How can someone deliberately hurt someone they love? How far would someone go to hurt their sibling out of anger? Sibling rivalry seems to be as normal as the sun rising. It happens in all families no matter the age, race, or gender of the siblings. In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, Brother and Doodle, the main characters, are siblings whose relationship has many flaws, although they clearly have a deep love for each other. The narrator of the story, Brother, has a positive side to his personality that shows through his determinedness and loving for Doodle, but his negative side seems to show more often in the story through his pridefulness and meanness. Although Brother may be slightly more

For instance, when Doodle is a baby lying on the bed, Brother said, “It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow” (345). Instead of feeling empathy for Doodle and his situation, Brother’s pride causes him to feel more sorry for himself because people would know he has a disabled brother. His pride takes him so far as wanting to kill Doodle, even though he is merely a baby and can’t do anything to wrong brother, just so that he would not have a brother who was not “all there.” In addition, after the narrator talks about when Brother made Doodle touch his own coffin, Brother narrates, “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed of having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set out to teach him” (346). Brother may be doing a kind act by teaching Doodle to walk, but his intentions aren’t to help Doodle, but to help himself. His pride holds him back from appreciating Doodle for what he is. Brother’s pride creates a barrier between himself and the people he