Most Embarassing Moment In The Scarlet Ibis, By James Hurst

Try to reimagine the most embarrassing moment that people have experienced. That feeling that people go through in those moments, the feeling of being out-of-place, it’s a hard feeling to go through. The short story, “The Scarlet Ibis,” by James Hurst goes deep into the feeling of being different for someones entire life. William Armstrong (a.k.a. Doodle) was born different, he was smaller than most babies, and he didn’t grow at a normal rate. His brother and parents didn’t know what to do with him so they just put him in bed and hoped for the est. His brother felt bad so he tried to teach Doodle to be normal by showing him to crawl. It took a while, but Doodle finally began to crawl… Backwards. Nobody thought that Doodle could be any more

Once he was born, the doctors and his family all believed that he was going to die at birth (Hurst 110). When the family got Doodle back to the house, they weren’t sure what to do with him. Nobody believed in him and didn’t think that he would ever grow at a normal rate. His parents never even wanted to name him, just because he was crippled and different than what they wanted. They ended up putting him on rubber sheets in the center of the bed cause they couldn’t do anything else with him (Hurst 110). His brother was getting tired of Doodle because he couldn’t do anything with him. Doodle was different and his own body wouldn’t let him do the activities that normal kids his age were doing. The first time that anyone seeme interested in Doodle was when his brother taught him how to crawl. He wasn’t trying to help Doodle, he was trying to kee himself entertained (Hurst 110). He would lay Doodle on his chest which made it hard for Doodle to move himself, straining terribly. Because of Doodle’s disability, his head was around the same size as his body, making it hard for him to stay up for long periods of time. All of these reasons prove that Doodle was treated poorly, all because he was different than other

His brother had helped a lot by teaching him how to walk by himself, but one incident proved that he will always be different. It started when they found a dead bird outside, and they didn’t know what to do with it. The whole family was a little grossed out by the bird, all of them except for Doodle. Doodle felt sorry for the bird and felt like it was his job to help the bird (Hurst 117). Most people would throw out the bird, but Doodle isn’t like most people. So instead, he chose to give the bird a proper burial. Even when his whole family was laughing at him, he kept digging until his job was done. Doodle was really trying to be less different, though. Instead of being pulled around in a wagon, he was able to walk to the woods with his brother (Hurst 116). Doodle had been learning to walk by himself for weeks and it had finally paid off. Doodle had never been able to walk like normal kids his age and the fact that his brother helped him means a lot to him. One day, while Doodle and his brother were on a walk, they started to feel the rain. In minutes, they realized that they were in the middle of a terrible storm, Doodle’s brother, being as scared as he was, began to run back home. Doodle noticed and started to run after him. Doodle could barely walk, let alone run through the storm. Doodle couldn’t breathe after running when he wasn’t supposed to, it was so bad that he started choking on his