Analysis of "The Scarlet Ibis" and reader connection

¶ … Scarlet Ibis, by James Hurst is a short story that focuses on the theme of disappointment, guilt and love, primarily in the story's narrator who tries in vain to shape his disabled younger brother into a mirror image of himself.

The story opens on the birth of the narrator's younger brother. Seven years younger than he, the narrator quickly begins referring to the baby as "Doodle" because "when he crawled on the rug, he crawled backward, as if he were in reverse and couldn't change gears. This made him look like a doodlebug" (Hurst 12). Doodle is born sickly, and no one in the family expects him to live long. The child is given a coffin before he is given a real name. Only when he is three months old do his parents name him, William Armstrong, a name which the narrator notes "sounds good only on a tombstone" (Hurst 12).

As time goes by, it becomes apparent that perhaps Doodle's death isn't as imminent as the family might have guessed. The boys' father builds Doodle a cart so he can be taken anywhere Brother goes, and it becomes apparent that this is exactly what the boys' parents intended. The narrator notes, "If I so much as picked up my hat, he'd start crying . . . Mama would call from wherever she was, 'Take Doodle with you'" (Hurst 12). As the family proves somewhat dismissive of Doodle, who they seem to view as more of a burden than a member of the family, Brother decides to take Doodle on as a sort of project.

Brother decides that if he must be seen everywhere with Doodle, he must do whatever he can in order to alter the "embarrassment" that Doodle is into someone respectable of being seen with. Brother takes it upon himself to teach Doodle how to walk, which becomes a daunting task for both boys -- physically for Doodle, and mentally for Brother. When Doodle eventually learns how to walk and becomes more or less an accepted member of the family, Brother begins to realize the true cruelty within himself, for, "Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother" (Hurst 14).

This mentality is soon overridden in Brother's eyes who soon decides if Doodle can walk, he can run, if he can run, he can swim, if he can swim, he can go to school. Brother begins to push Doodle to his physical limits, which soon catch up with him. One day running through the rain, Doodle falls behind, and Brother, frustrated with Doodle's physical limits and more so his own limits of not being able to alter Doodle as he hoped -- leaves Doodle behind, where he dies. Brother returns to find him, where "he had been bleeding from the mouth, and his neck and the front of his shirt were stained a brilliant red" mirroring the image of a dead scarlet ibis the family had found and fawned over outside their home only days earlier (Hurst 16).

It is at this point in the story that the narrator's guilt and real love for his younger brother washes over him. It is palpable to the reader that Brother feels as though he has caused Doodle's death by forcing him to become something the boy could never be -- a mirror image of Brother himself. It is not farfetched to assume that had Brother accepted Doodle's physical limitations, Doodle would perhaps be alive at the end of the story.