CHARACTER ANALYSIS OF THE
SHORT STORY “THE SCARLET IBIS” BY JAMES HURST
The short story “The
Scarlet Ibis” tells about a boy’s memories of his younger brother. The
younger brother, Doodle, is crippled and the elder brother tries to teach him
some skills such as walking and running. Thus, the major characters in the
story are Doodle and his elder brother and their parents are the minor
characters. The mama and the daddy are flat characters and we only know that
they are caring and sensitive. However, both Doodle and the elder brother are
round, dynamic and complex characters and they are also quite different from
each other in terms of their characteristic features.
We are not given much
information about the physical appearances of the two brothers except for
Doodle’s shriveled and skinny body. However, we are provided information about
their characteristic properties. Doodle can be generally defined as a boy who
is lack of self- confidence, coward and emotional. At the beginning of the
story, we are informed that he is a crippled child and has some problems with
some basic motor skills. As the story goes on, we learn that he is an emotional
child as he cries with happiness when his brother brings him to Old Woman
Swamp. When they are outside together, Doodle clungs to his brother and cries
as “Don’t leave me Brother! Don’t leave
me!”. Here, I can infer that Doodle is a coward child. He is even afraid of
being hurt by his brother because he says “Don’t
hurt me Brother!” when he falls down while his brother is training him to
walk. Moreover, throughout their training, Doodle’s attitudes show us that he is
lack of self-confidence. He does not believe that he can walk. He needs
encouragement from his elder brother in order to continue trying. The last
trait of him is that he does not care about being different from other people
and being admired by others. When his brother tries to encourage him by telling
him that he will be different from anybody else when he starts school, Doodle
shows ignorance to such a thing by asking “Does
that make any difference?”.
When we look at the elder
brother’s characteristic properties, we see many contrasts to the properties of
Doodle. He is nearly the opposite of his younger brother. According to me, his
most striking property is his passion to success and being admired by other
people. At the very beginning, as the narrator of the story, he indicates that
he has a kind of cruelty in him by telling “There
is inside me a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love.” Towards the
end he tells that ‘the streak of cruelty within him’ awakens when Doodle fails.
He also confesses that he wants to teach Doodle how to walk not because he
loves Doodle but because he is ashamed of having a crippled brother. He states
that “I was embarrassed at having a
brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set out to teach him.”. He
teaches him walking also because he will not have to carry him anymore if
Doodle can walk. To me, this also shows
that he tries to find a solution to the problems which disturb him. What I mean
is that he tries to do something about his problems rather than expecting other
people to do something or just complaining about them. He is very self-confident
and gains even more confidence as Doodle makes progress in the trainings. He
tries to encourage Doodle and makes effort to teach him. He is very hopeful and
believes in Doodle in that he can walk and run. However, this is actually his
belief to himself. He is passionate about being successful. When Doodle manages
to walk thanks to his trainings, their parents become very happy and hug him by
admiration. Even though he knows that he did not do it for the sake of his
brother but because he is ashamed of his brother, this event makes him more
confident and he wants to do more. He thinks that he will stand out and will be
admired if he teaches incredible things to a rippled boy so he wants to teach
more to Doodle. He puts more and more pressure on Doodle and he causes him to
die at the end. In a way, he casts his own passion, ability and his motivation
over Doodle. He kind of uses another one to fulfill his desire of success and
pride. When Doodle fails at the end, he accepts Doodle cannot do it. In fact,
this is his failure, not Doodle’s and he knows it very well. Considering all
these information, I can define the elder brother as an oppressive, success
oriented, motivated and diligent person.
To conclude, the mama and the
daddy about whom we know very limited information are the minor characters of
the story. Doodle and his elder brother are the major characters whose minds we
have access and about whom we know several things.
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