Significance Of Doodle In The Scarlet Ibis

In the “Scarlet Ibis”, the scarlet ibis is a metaphor for Doodle because they both share similar traits and circumstances. When Doodle and his brother first see the bird, it was in a tree with its “long legs... perched precariously. Its wings hung down loosely, and as we watched, a feather dropped away and floated slowly down.” Similar to the bird, Doodle has problems moving his lower body and his legs are awkward until his brother teaches him how to walk. In addition, the bird doesn’t seem to be healthy and normal, just like Doodle. This is important because it Doodle’s disability is a major part of the story. Perhaps the reason Doodle is so interested in the bird is because it is not healthy therefore Doodle has some kind of a connection to the bird. After the bird “tumbled down, bumping through the limbs of the bleeding tree and landing at our feet with a thud” and died, the brothers noticed how its “long, graceful neck jerked twice into an S.” When the narrator finds Doodle in the storm “with... [his] vermilion neck appear unusually long and

When the narrator finds Doodle dead, he calls him “my fallen scarlet ibis” which means that he finds Doodle beautiful and fragile in death, like the red bird. Despite the bird’s illness and Doodle’s physical disability, their bodies were still elegant. The scarlet ibis was in the Armstrongs’ backyard because “a storm must have brought it” and Doodle’s death was partly influenced by the storm because he cannot be “too cold”, which further connects the bird and Doodle’s deaths. In conclusion, the scarlet ibis and Doodle share many physical similarities and they both die similar deaths which is why the author used the scarlet ibis as a metaphor for Doodle. This matters because the author wants the reader to see that the bird and Doodle share many qualities and have subtle connections that make them very