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Symbolism In The Scarlet Ibis By Hurst

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The short story of “The Scarlet Ibis” is a story of two brothers, in which the older brother pushes his younger brother, Doodle, to be perfect and to be just like the other boys. This story is expressed through many different symbols that have meaning throughout the story. “The Scarlet Ibis” uses symbolism in birds, death, and the color red to show the conflict of one older brother pushing his younger brother to be perfect. Birds are used throughout “The Scarlet Ibis” to symbolize how fragile and unique the lives of creatures in nature are. “On the topmost branch a bird the size of a chicken with scarlet feathers and long legs was precariously”(Hurst). The author uses the description of how high up the bird is, to give a description of how fragile the bird’s life will be when it falls from the tall tree. Hurst uses a unique description of the size and color of the bird and its body parts for it to be viewed as something different than the typical bird you see everyday. The author uses the word, precariously, to foreshadow that the bird will eventually take a long fall to the ground due to the loose grip on the branch. …show more content…

“Even death did not mar its grace, for it lay on the earth like a broken vase of red flowers, and we stood around it, awed by its exotic beauty”(Hurst). The author mentions how the bird was lying on the ground to show how still and lifeless the bird was. The broken vase of red flowers gave a sense of a calm death and the breaking of life and love in the bird. When Hurst mentions the standing around the bird and awing its exotic beauty it puts a symbol of how beautiful the bird was before it let go and gave its life

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In the story "The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst The Scarlet Ibis symbolically connects to doodle. Hurst uses symbolism to connect the bird and the boy by explaining the similarities between them. The scarlet color of the ibis symbolizes the red on doodle shirt when he is hunched over by the bush during the storm.(183).The bird also symbolizes doodle because the bird was in the wrong region which meant he was different to that area(179). And even though doodle was born different and was different because he could not walk.

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In James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis”, the narrator is shameful of his little brother, Doodle, in which makes his pride overpower Doodle’s needs. He is afraid of what people will think of his crippled little brother since he isn’t like anyone else so he tries to bring doodle up to his expectations. Some may argue that the narrator did make a big impact on doodle’s life by pushing him to his limits. Although, the narrator

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In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the protagonist is cruel to his brother, Doodle, because of his unexpected disability. For example, the narrator renamed his brother from ‘William Armstrong’ to ‘Doodle’ because he is convinced that his original name would only be meaningful on a tombstone. Even though the protagonist believed that renaming his brother would be an act of kindness, he only did it because he assumed that no one would envisage much someone with the name ‘Doodle’ as opposed to ‘William Armstrong’. The narrator allegedly picked the name ‘Doodle’ as it would fit the characteristics of someone who is weak, and is not capable of doing much, even though Doodle listened to everything his brother said, in defiance

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Although Doodle is a human and the scarlet ibis is a bird these both symbolize each other by showing that Doodle and the bird both had red, weak bodies. The author shows that the scarlet ibis is weak by saying that “A bird with scarlet feathers, it looks tired or maybe even sick” (180). The bird may have been exhausted or that it

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Scarlet Ibis- Symbolism, Doodle and the bird. In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis”, The bird's body size was that of a chicken. In the story, “The Scarlet Ibis” the text states, “ A bird a size of a chicken.” Showing the body size of the bird.

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In the short story The Scarlet Ibis, James Hurst uses symbolism to compare the scarlet ibis and the narrator's younger sibling Doodle. There are many parts in this story that refer the scarlet ibis to Doodle symbolically. To begin with, The Scarlet Ibis and Doodle should've never been in the environment they had died in. When Doodle was born everyone knew he wasn’t going to make it much longer in his short span of life “Everyone thought he was going to die”(416). Therefore his family built Doodle a coffin, Later on this represents an older Doodle when he was burying the scarlet ibis “The bird wasn’t supposed to be here….it couldn't handle the climate”(425).

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James Hurst creates The Scarlet Ibis with an abundance of many literary devices, but a main device is symbolism. Nature and the Color red are the main symbols that Hurst uses throughout his short story. Hurst provides many symbols in his story and they all have a significant meaning, mostly relating to death. Throughout the story, the author makes multiple references to the color red, not only symbolizing death, but also provides hints of Doodle’s Death. The first encounter with this dreadful color can be traced to the second paragraph when Hurst describes Doodle after being born as a “tiny body which was red”(pg 1).

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“It was covered with a film of Paris green sprinkled to kill the rat, and the screech owls had built a nest inside it” (Hurst 353). The tone of the “Scarlet Ibis” is mournful and melancholy from start to finish about a boy who struggled through his life trying to be like his older brother. Through the use of figurative language, imagery, and symbolism James Hurst wove a tale that touched everyone's hearts.

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The narrator’s pride wants Doodle to be an ordinary brother, and kills him in the strive for perfection. “For a long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis,” the narrator reveals (426). For the first time, the narrator notices the connection between the scarlet ibis and Doodle. When Doodle dies, his neck is twisted identical to the scarlet ibis’ neck as it dies under the bleeding tree, along with the fact that they are both weak and fragile. The scarlet ibis and Doodle has come a long way, dodging many obstacles and achieving many goals, but in the end, both fall short of

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In a person’s life, many situations transpire and make them feel pride over one’s self. Readers can see this in the short story,” The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst. “In his spare time Hurst wrote short stories and plays, but The Scarlet Ibis was the only work of his that become famous “(gradesaver.com)”. In the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis” James Hurst uses red to symbolize warning, death, and guilt to show the change the older brother goes through, as he takes care of Doodle. The first instance when red is used, is to express warning and the older brother’s attitude, is at Doodle’s birth.

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The Scarlet Ibis symbolizes Doodle because when he was born he was not supposed to live and the Scarlet Ibis was not supposed to be their either. Also when Doodle dies he is symbolized by the bird because the bird was red and Doodle was covered in blood (he was also very red when he was born) which was red and they said the Scarlet Ibis had a long neck and the narrator described Doodle as having a long

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The Past, Present, and Future Over the last year in Literature/Writing, I have grown significantly as a writer due to my discovered ability to create concise and connected thesis statements, despite that, I still struggle with commentary that pulls out “juicy” words from a quote and deeply analyzes them. First and foremost, one skill I have developed over the course of this school year has been my ability to generate concise and connected thesis statements that deliver my argument and position within the span of one sentence. At the start of the school year, we were asked to write a literary analysis for a short story called ‘The Scarlet Ibis’ by David Hurst. After taking a look at my old analysis, I can identify my claim as “In the short story, “The Scarlet

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By placing the bird so high up, yet incredibly close to the family, it can be taken as a warning. The bird only appears in this single line throughout the excerpt, acting as an observer but also as a predator waiting for a chance to strike, providing an unsettling truth to death being out of our control. Though many efforts may be made to create a sanctuary, there are things out of one's control and when power is exercised, there will be forces fighting back. The opening sections of the novel A Bird in the House demonstrate this clearly by how Margarets Laurence's’ use of literary devices can be interpreted.

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The dead bird represented the main suspect Minnie Foster a.k.a Mrs. Wright, it represent the life of Minnie before she became subordinate to her husband. “She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was thirty years ago”, the birdcage represented how trapped Mrs. Wright felt and how her husband kept her secluded from the world. The dead bird was the motive for crime; Mrs. Wright killed the bird to represent freedom from her husband’s authority.

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Symbolism in the Scarlet Ibis The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst is a short story full of symbolism between the antagonist Doodle and The Scarlet Ibis. Doodle’s family didn’t really want Doodle because he wasn’t as fortunate as most kids in term of his physical and mental health. The Scarlet Ibis symbolizes Doodle in his struggle to communicate and interact with the rest of society with his disabilities. The death and the color of the Scarlet Ibis represents Doodle and how he was alone just like the bird was alone and far from home.

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