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The Scarlet Ibis Symbolism

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The human mind is sometimes stronger than the human body itself. In James Hurst’s short story, “The Scarlet Ibis,” a boy named Doodle was pushed to his limits to overcome his struggles. Due to Doodle’s restraints and disabilities, trying new things and building strength to keep up with everyone else was his favorite thing, his mind was full of determination and vigor; this demonstrated irony of how fragile things are sometimes the strongest and the symbolism of the scarlet ibis’ compatibility to Doodle weaknesses.

Strength of the mind is more powerful than strength of the body; therefore, Doodle’s strength is being compared to the scarlet ibis by showing his physical impairments and powerful mind to the significance of symbolism. The scarlet
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The author of The “Scarlet Ibis”, James Hurst, symbolizes Doodle with the scarlet ibis in a number of different ways. To begin, when describing the looks of the scarlet ibis, the author writes, “At that moment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were uncoordinated, and amid much flapping and a spray of flying feathers, it tumbled down, bumping through the limbs of the bleeding tree and landing at our feet with a thud.” With this description, the reader pictures the bird limp and lifeless on the ground in a mangled heap. The bird bleeds as it falls out of the tree, as it helplessly descends from the branch. The author describes Doodle in much the same way, and he uses some of the same words to do so when he writes, “Limply, he fell backwards onto the earth.

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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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Winston Churchill once said, "Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." In other words, Churchill stated that it is not the act of success that matters, it is the journey that made you successful that counts. In the book "The Scarlet Ibis" and the film Simon Birch they tell the story of a physically impaired boy who puts his disability aside to defy the odds and triumph before ultimately dying. Doodle and Simon were alike and different in various instances, the main themes were; their brother figure, their parents, and the major symbols in the story.

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Plans Both stories, the scarlet ibis and the simon birch story are similar in symbols as in the deer by the lake in the simon birch story, theme as in don’t take someone you love for granted, and setting as in the two boys in both stories were born with undersized hearts. Symbols is one way the two stories are similar, in the Scarlet Ibis story the scarlet ibis symbolizes doodle because the scarlet ibis is weak and expected to die the same as doodle. the second symbol is again in the scarlet ibis, Doodle is seen as a symbol of hope because the doctors and everyone else believe he is going to die but then he lives. Then everyone thinks that he will never walk but his older brother teaches him to.

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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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In James Hurst’s Story “The Scarlet Ibis”, the demand for normality ruins lives. In Hurst’s tale the protagonist is concerned about his crippled brother being seen as abnormal and reflecting badly on the character. In order to prevent this the protagonist starts to train his brother, eventually he begins to feel that Doodle, his brother, is not putting in enough effort. Our protagonist states, “You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school?”

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