Elements of “The Scarlet Ibis” Every amazing story needs outstanding literary elements. One story in particular uses literary elements with astonishing skill. “The Scarlet Ibis” uses irony, foreshadow, and symbolism to make the tone in James Hurst’s story an ironic and sad one. The irony in “The Scarlet Ibis” is a huge part of the reasons why it is such an incredible tale. Doodle was a unique child with a very rare disability. Nobody expected him to live. Even the doctor said that he wouldn’t live very long, but he survived and had a brother that tugged him around wherever he went. The disability that the child named Doodle had prevented him from walking anywhere. Doodle couldn’t crawl until his third winter. He would struggle to crawl until he grew tired and would then “collapse back on to the bed like an old worn-out doll.” (Hurst 1). Luckily his brother teaches him to walk in one summer. The irony in this act of kindness is the fact that the big brother did all of this so he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed while carrying him around town anymore. Even more ironic is that by trying to make Doodle a less embarrassing brother, he ended up killing him by over exercising …show more content…
The first fore shadow happens when the dad makes a mahogany coffin for Doodle. Even though the family didn’t use it right away, they still put it to good use in the end of the story. The narrator even made Doodle touch it. Also the Scarlet Ibis died right in front of the family. This also happened right before Doodle died. The author even had Aunt Nicey play a role in the fore shadowing of the story. Aunt Nicey said “Dead birds is bad luck” (Hurst 5) and then she even said “especially red dead birds.”(Hurst 5) If it weren’t for all of the fore shadow I wouldn’t have been able to read to the end of the story without tearing up and getting a huge lump in the back of my