Disabilities In The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst

To be proud of what one has accomplished is adequate but the continuation of feeling this superiority may ultimately lead to hubris. In James Hurst’s short story “The Scarlet Ibis”, the narrator is disappointed and dissatisfied with his younger brother, Doodle’s, physical disabilities which enlightens the idea of creating a “development program” that will prepare him for his upcoming school year and prevent his brother from any further embarrassment; the prolonging of this program eventually leads to Doodle’s collapse from exhaustion. When Doodle was born, everyone in his family, besides Aunt Nicey, strictly believed he would not survive. Due to this belief, Doodle’s father prematurely builds his son a coffin which is then one day introduced

The brother’s journey to further continue Doodle’s growth begins at Old Woman Swamp where the narrator is determined to teach his brother to walk, run, swim, and fight, eventually causing him to lose sight of his brother’s physical fatigue. Similarly, this fatigue is once again displayed when a relatively large, red bird lands in the family’s tree and while ignoring its physical restraints, attempts to leave the tree. In its strive to do so, the fluttering of the ibis’s weak wings leads to its clumsy fall, out of the tree and onto the ground, in which it lays awkwardly and awaits its death. Hurst uses the coffin and go-kart, Old Woman Swamp, and scarlet ibis as symbols to convey the effects overweening pride has on one who tries to change another for their own selfish

One day when the boys were out near the barn, the narrator decided to show his brother the neatly hand crafted coffin made for him a couple months after his birth; Doodle was described as a baby with a large head and a red, shriveled body . The narrator says, “I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket,” but Doodle disowned it and stated, “‘It’s not mine’” (Hurst 125-131). Doodle is very upset with the coffin’s symbolic relation to assumptions made about his early childhood life; he does not appreciate the small amount of faith his family had in him, so he immediately rejects any identification with the tiny coffin. The location of the coffin in the loft of the barn shows Doodle’s success in overcoming people’s expectations of him not surviving past his youth. Doodle’s determination to surpass people’s presumptions is once again displayed when he learns to walk and stops relying on his brother to tow him around in a go-kart. The narrator describes it as “[When] he started crying to be taken out in the yard[,] it ended up being me having to lug him wherever I went,” he was, “a burden in many ways” (85-91). Having to take care of his brother often, something he does not enjoy and wishes would end, begins to feel like a chore for the narrator. Although the go-kart was an important part of Doodle’s transportation and the brother’s