Doodle In The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst

There are countless stories that have sappy endings where the hero saves the day and everything goes well, but in James Hurst’s short story ‘The Scarlet Ibis’ the main character makes mistakes that costs his little brother his life. Doodle, the little brother, has many different facets of his personality similar to a real person. It is because of these many facets that we, the readers, could connect to him.The most notable personalities that Doodle has is his selflessness, dependence on others, and his creative imagination. Doodle is very selfless and he is willing to walk to the edge of the earth just to see his family happy. He could not walk at all because of his birth defects, but his brother slowly but surely taught him how to first stand up, and then walk. Doodle accomplished an impossible feat. Even then he did not bask in the glory but “told [his family] that it was[ the narrator] who had taught him how to walk,”(206). Another instance of Doodle being selfless is when he is being trained by his brother. If someone made a person” swim until [he or she] turned blue and rowed until [he or she] couldn’t lift an oar”(209) the person would naturally complain about it. Doodle did not even make even the slightest

Doodle’s imagination is a lot more stimulated than everyone else’s . Based on his very unfortunate circumstance of his birth “people in his stories all had wings and flew wherever they wanted to go,”(206). All of Doodle’s stories represents his wants. He wants a scenic life with his brother where “all day long[they'd] swing through the cypresses on the rope vines, and if it rained[they]’s huddle beneath an umbrella tree and played stick frog,”(207). Doodle knows that he could not climb a tree much less swing from a vine, but he still imagines a life with no burdens or responsibilities. A life where he was normal. A life with no