The Scarlet Ibis Literary Analysis

The short story, “The Scarlet Ibis”, by James Hurst, shows that obtaining excessive pride is extremely harmful and can leave someone so heartless, while love and affection can fill one’s heart with happiness. Pride is an important theme in the story, because pride is linked with the shame and embarrassment that the narrator has to deal over his little brother, Doodle, who has a disability of not being able to walk. The narrator,”Doodle’s brother”, was so ashamed to have a brother like Doodle, that he even decides to kill the baby by smothering him with a pillow (Hurst 1). This shows that the narrator has no affection, love, or sympathy for his own brother and even planned on killing him just for pride and significance. The narrator is very mean to Doodle throughout
Doodle begs his brother to never abandon him. The Brother was embarrassed that Doodle still couldn't walk and he was still seeking for excessive pride, so he sets out to teach Doodle (Hurst 3). This one part of the story also shows that Doodle’s brother is selfish, and only plans on achieving his goals and using Doodle as some sort of tool to obtain fulfillment instead of treating him like his loving brother. Doodle surprises his family by showing his ability to walk on his birthday and everyone gives Doodle’s brother most of the credit for helping him walk. Doodle’s brother is still greedy for more pleasure and pride, so he decides to teach Doodle to become athletic like his brother. But pretty soon after such great achievement, Doodle. They find a scarlet ibis in their yard. Doodle feels sad for the fallen bird and he buries the bird (Hurst 7). Doodle shows empathy to the poor Scarlet Ibis and feels sad for the bird and what it must’ve gone through. This also shows that the flock of Scarlet Ibis are selfish too, just like Doodle’s brother and just abandoned the Scarlet Ibis, just in order to move on along with the rest of the