Is The Significance Of Big Brother In The Scarlet Ibis, By James Hurst

Significant relationships can cause us to romanticise or uphold the memories of our loved one. Big Brother, in The Scarlet Ibis, by James Hurst, teaches us that the significance that a person had over us can change how we look back on their memory. Brother shows us this when he guides us through the relationship and memories he and Doodle had.

The story begins in big brothers POV many years into the future, when he is in the clove of his seasons. He takes us back into time as he begins telling us about his younger brother Doodle “Doodle was just about the craziest brother a boy ever had.” Doodle was born when brother was six and was believed to be a coffin baby by everyone except Aunt Nicey who believed he was an angel baby, “Everybody thought

I skipped through the rooms, down the echoing halls, shouting, ‘Mama, he smiled. He’s all there! He’s all there!’and he was.” this realization changed their relationship, Doodle became a lot more active and though he couldn’t walk he was busy crawling “Although Doodle learned to crawl, he showed no signs of walking, but he wasn’t idle.” being unable to walk didn’t stop Doodle from following his brother everywhere he went “it was about this time that Daddy built him a go-cart and I had to pull him around.” “First I just paraded him up and down the piazza, but then he started crying to be taken out into the yard, and it ended up by my having to lug him wherever I went.” despite his efforts to cause Doodle to no longer want to follow him, Doodle stuck by him no matter where he went so he took him to a place he found beautiful, Doodle was my brother and he was going to cling to me forever, 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.” When Doodle saw the view he began to cry, because of how pretty he thought it was this caused Brother to have a new found appreciation for him and caused them to go there often, making necklaces and crowns out of the

When Doodle learned how to walk well, they would roam around together “Now when we roamed off together,resting often, we never turned back until our destination had been reached.” They took up lying to help pass time on the journeys they had, both their lies were crazy and had anybody heard them they would have been sent to a psychiatric center,although Brothers lies were usually pointless, scary,and involved Doodle’s were twice as crazy and sometimes involved people who had wings, and boys with pet peacocks, in his eyes Doodle was a better liar, “Yes, i must admit it. Doodle could beat me lying.” Apart from lying they also spent a lot of time planning their future both agreeing to live in Old Woman Swamp, “Doodle and I spent lots of time thinking about our future. We decided that when we were grown we’d live in Old Woman Swamp.” Brothers arrogance got the best of him after teaching Doodle to walk he believed he could teach him anything, and so he developed a program for him, without anyone’s knowledge, Doodle also believed his brother could teach him anything they set out to finish the program for when Doodle was going to start school “I would teach him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight. He, too, now believed in my infallibility.” no progress was made that winter since Brother was in school and Doodle sick throughout that spring they set out again, and began the