Summary Of The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst

In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis”, James Hurst indirectly characterizes the narrator as a selfish, immature brother, mostly from the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, to demonstrate the idea that pride leads one to falsely believe in their infallibility, which results in them making regrettable decisions and hurting themselves as well as others. The narrator is portrayed to have an excessive amount of pride on the surface, but deep down, he knows of his flaw and suppresses it from his elders. “...I planned a terrific program for him, unknown to Mama and Daddy, of course.” After he teaches Doodle to walk, he concludes that his ‘methods’ of forcing Doodle to walk are effective, so he is determined to prepare Doodle for school by teaching

In this section, the narrator is awakened by his success and commits to his plan to turn Doodle into a “normal” kid. Hurst uses the phrase ‘of course’ after the narrator mentioned him not telling his parents demonstrating his guilt he has. The narrator is convinced of his infallibility, but there is an underlying shame he has because he knows that his ‘terrific program’ is out of line, for the reasons why he is doing it. After the narrator had established his program to ‘fix’ Doodle for his own benefit, he works hard on his brother for several days, taking him to Old Woman Swamp and Horsehead Landing to practice his skills. The goal was to make Doodle a ‘normal’ boy by the first day of school. As the start of the school approaches they are quite far from the goal and a desperations slowly sets in. One stormy day, the narrator and Doodle head to Horsehead Landing for one more attempt to try and finally reach the narrator’s goals. As the storm is approaching it becomes clear to the both brothers that the plans set for Doodle are not achievable and narrator becomes disappointed with his brother and reacts to it by becoming increasing angered towards