ipl-logo

Selfishness In The Scarlet Ibis

878 Words4 Pages

Selfishness drives you to make unorthodox decisions. In the short story, The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, The author uses figurative expressions and images to make clear the relationship between a handicapable kid and his brother. Brother is extremely cruel to Doodle but he still seems to love Brother notwithstanding this. Brother cruelly pushes Doodle beyond his limits because he is embarrassed by having a disabled brother and is only concerned about his own feelings.The reason Doodle loves brother is because, despite Brother's anger, Doodle wants to impress his brother, Doodle Looks up to his brother, and Doodle doesn't understand the way he was being treated.

Before Doodle learned to walk their parents made brother take doodle anywhere …show more content…

Brother began teaching Doodle to walk. "I can't walk" Yes you can, Doodle... All you gotta do is try"(4).This reveals that Doodle was very doubtful and frankly, didn't care enough to ever try. The only reason he ever started to walk was because his brother was pushing him to be normal. Doodle wanted to just impress his brother but didn't really intend to walk. After Doodle was finally strong enough to walk, the Armstrong Brothers showed their parents. "Doodle only walked because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (5) This quote proves that Doodle wants to be accepted by his brother. Throughout the story, Brother is pushing doodle to be like him for his own conscience. Doodle is mesmerized by Brother so he wants to be just like him. While a Brother was giving doodle walking lessons. Doodle constantly questioned the importance of walking "Does it make any difference? It certainly only does"(6). Doodle didn't walk for himself in the beginning of the story he was content in being himself. With the constant push from brother to be normal, Doodle began to feel unhappy with his disability and developed a desire to be just like his brother. Without Brother recurring pressure to fit the social norm. Doodle would have been content being himself and didn't yearn to impress Doodle continues to adore his brother neglecting the emotional abuse because Doodle

Show More
Related
323 Words | 2 Pages

doodle isn’t supposed to walk but brother wants to prove everybody wrong. “I can’t walk, brother’ he said. ‘Who says so?’ I demanded” (Hurst 3). When doodle was born they said it was really likely doodle wasn’t gonna make it because of weak bones and heart.

Read More
597 Words | 3 Pages

and he was’” (Hurst 351). Brother taught Doodle how to walk for self-embarrassment later realized that he wasn’t the only one effected by

Read More
641 Words | 3 Pages

Doodles brother is responsible for the death of his own brother. Three big reasons that led me to believe this is that he always wanted doodle gone from the beginning, he was ashamed and very embarrassed of having a disabled brother, and that he only helped doodle for his own personal benefit. All of those show why he left his brother in that storm to die. From doodles birth his brother never liked him or cared about him and wanted him gone. One example is “i began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow.”

Read More
573 Words | 3 Pages

Brother took a lot of his own time to help teach Doodle things like to walk. Everyone said that Doodle would never be able to stand up, but brother was tired of lugging doodle everywhere so he taught him how to walk. ”I'm going to teach you to walk doodle”(Hurst 2). With everything that brother did to help out Doodle to become a normal a normal person meant a lot to Doodle. Doodle was the only thing

Read More
386 Words | 2 Pages

It's the narrators fault for the following reasons: he was selfish, he was embarrassed of him, and he pressured him. The narrator was being selfish as he admitted that he did it for himself because he was ashamed of Doodle being crippled. Doodle looks up to his brother and would do anything for his approval. The narrator knows that his brother's heart is weak, forces Doodle

Read More
381 Words | 2 Pages

Brother is ashamed of Doodle’s disability because Doodle isn't like other boys. Brother is trying to make Doodle as normal as possible so that other kids don't bully them. So, Doodle is taught to walk by Brother. Brother says, “I was embarrassed of having a brother that age

Read More
502 Words | 3 Pages

Doodle talked so much that his family had to just ignore him most of the time. At the beginning of the story Doodle could not walk, and then his brother decided to teach him. When his brother first decided to teach him how to walk he didn’t think he was strong enough, and he wanted to give up. Doodle did not think he was strong enough to walk, and he didn’t think he needed to learn. A motivation for Doodle to learn was when his brother took him to see the casket his parents bought for him when he was a baby, and they didn’t think he was going to live.

Read More
1314 Words | 6 Pages

The first time we are introduced to the motivation behind teaching Doodle to walk, and even the idea of teaching Doodle to walk, when the narrator tells us “I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk,

Read More
740 Words | 3 Pages

“He was born when I was six, from the outset, a disappointment”. (Hurst, 350) from the moment Doodle was born he was viewed as not good enough for the narrator. The narrator had longings of what a brother would be like, when his new brother was physically incapable to live up to his desire he tried to change him out of pridefulness. Embarrassment and pride were the only reasons that Doodle was taught to walk, not because the narrator thought he was able. “Shut up, I’m not going to hurt you, I’m going to teach you to walk” (Hurst, 354) Doodle’s disability was not something he could ‘fix’, and on account of his brothers ego, Doodle was pushed too far, thus ultimately he could be pushed no

Read More
631 Words | 3 Pages

Though Doodle continued to practice and get back up, “Doodle told them it was I (Brother) who had taught him to walk” (468). Even if Doodle had done most of the work, he altruistically gave his brother the credit for his accomplishments. By doing so, this gave the trait of selflessness to Doodle. When summer began, Brother “made him swim until he turned blue and row until he couldn't lift an oar” (471). Though Doodle was in pain, he continued to do what he was told in order to please his brother.

Read More
1149 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
452 Words | 2 Pages

He says this because he has to haul his brother around everywhere. (In page 1 paragraph 3) he was making plans to kill his brother because he couldn't play with him. He said that having a brother that wasn't there at all was unbearable, since he couldn't handle it he wanted to kill him? (Page 3 paragraph 5) says “ I was crying because doodle only was able to walk because i ashamed having a crippled brother. He only succeeded because he was ashamed because he had a special brother that couldn't walk.

Read More
822 Words | 4 Pages

Eventually the narrator taught Doodle to walk, then decided to teach Doodle other abilities that would make Doodle be considered “Normal.” The narrator was so engrossed in this task that he did not notice that Doodle could not keep up. “I made him swim until he turned blue and row until he couldn't lift an oar. Wherever we went, I purposely walked fast, and although he kept up, his face turned red and his eyes became glazed. Once, he could go no further, so he collapsed on the ground and began to cry.”

Read More
520 Words | 3 Pages

Brother planned to spend his entire life with Doodle, They "decided that when [they] were grown [they'd] live in Old Woman Swamp and pick dog-tongue" (Hurst). He wanted Doodle to have pride in himself and be able to do everything Brother wanted to do with him. Brother had pride in Doodle since he was first able to stand on his own and walk. He taught Doodle out of his own selfishness, he was ashamed of having an "invalid" brother and wanted to have "someone to race to Horsehead Landing, someone to box with, and someone to perch within the top fork of the great pine behind the barn, where across the fields and swamps you could see the sea" (Hurst). Brother was ashamed of the way he felt and his self-indulgent efforts for Doodle.

Read More
827 Words | 4 Pages

At first the narrator sees Doodle as a crazy frail brother but as we move into the story, we can observe a lot of varying feelings brother has towards Doodle. Brother described Doodle as unbearable, an invalid brother, a brother who was not there at all, so he started

Read More

More about Selfishness In The Scarlet Ibis

Related Topics

Open Document