The Scarlet Ibis Character Analysis

When people are young, they do not fully understand their actions and emotions, but as they grow older, people begin to discover the purposes for their actions and the mistakes they made in their youth. In James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis”, Brother, the narrator, retells the story of how he changed the life of his brother, in both a positive and negative way. When he first found out that he was going to have a brother, the narrator was excited. However, he was overcome with disappointed when his brother, Doodle, was born with a disability. He was ashamed of having a mentally challenged brother, because all he wanted was a “normal” brother to play with. He recounts how he treated Doodle with cruelty, even though part of him loved his brother.

Doodle was predicted to not be able to do much with his life, but when the narrator saw that his brother was smart, he made it a goal to teach Doodle to walk. When he finally reached his goal, he realized he was not worthy of the praise his parents were giving him, because "they did not know that [he] did it for [himself], that pride, whose slave [he] was, spoke to [him] louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because [he] was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (para.36). There were many times when Brother would push Doodle, even though he was tired. Other times, Brother threatened to leave Doodle. Once, he made Doodle touch his coffin, telling him that he should be dead. Many of this cruel actions were Brother’s way of pushing Doodle to become the “normal” brother that the narrator wanted. These cruel actions continued, even as Doodle’s health got worse, eventually resulting in his death. However, looking back, the narrator realizes that he did love his brother, especially when they both went to the Old Woman Swamp to enjoy the nature. He honestly describes how pride masked his love for Doodle and took control of his actions, causing him to be determined, cruel, and oblivious to the slow deterioration of Doodle’s

He shows he now knows that “pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death”, and it should be avoided (para. 30). Brother realizes and admits that his actions were controlled by his pride, making him do things that were mean and with wrong intentions. As a result of no longer having pride, the narrator expresses his love for his brother by describing Doodle as “someone you meet in your dreams” (para. 3). He describes how Doodle was always imaginative and caring. He even explains how Doodle had such a positive outlook on life and death, despite his disability. There are many points in his childhood where the narrator describes how he has learned from Doodle, which grew and matured him. By admitting his faults and failures as a child through his memoir, he shows his readers how he has grown to realize that he did, in fact, love his