The Scarlet Ibis

Megan Aronson

Ms. Wallace

English/P.6

6 October 2013

The Scarlet Ibis

In the Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, the theme of the story is everyone should be loved for who they are. Get to know a person before judging or calling them names. At first, the big brother let his feelings and pride get in the way of letting Doodle be who he really was. This ended up hurting Doodle in the end. Also, the scarlet ibis is a symbol that represented Doodle. Furthermore, the narrator, also known as Doodles big brother, is cruel as evidenced by the way he treated Doodle, by his annoyance at having to spend time with Doodle, and by his actions before Doodle died.

The brother treats Doodle poorly; he is very cruel to him. At one point he wanted to kill Doodle by smothering him with a pillow. As he states, " I made plans to smother him with a pillow" (Hurst 345). The brother is cruel because he is not thinking about anybody but himself, so for him killing Doodle would have solved all of his problems at that moment. He also told Doodle that he was going to die, so he made Doodle touch his own coffin. For example, when they were up in the attic together the brother started to leave Doodle so Doodle cried out "don't leave me brother, don't leave me" (Hurst 346). This is mean because Doodle is crying and hates to be left alone.