Symbols In The Scarlet Ibis

“Doodle was just about the craziest brother a boy ever had.” When the narrator is six, Doodle is born and born crippled. The narrator pushes Doodle to do things that were not thought possible for a boy like Doodle, just not for the right reasons. In this short story Doodle is symbolized by the Scarlet Ibis, in more ways than one. Another piece of symbolism Hurst uses is the color red. James Hurst uses symbolism to make “The Scarlet Ibis” more interesting. The largest symbol in “The Scarlet Ibis” is the Scarlet Ibis, and how it represents the way Doodle is out of place. Hurst writes, “"It's a scarlet ibis," he said, pointing to the picture. "It lives in the tropics-South America to Florida. A storm must have brought it here."”(602). Doodle was supposed to die, born sickly and to some disappointing. The Ibis is foreign to the area and is indigenous to the tropics. Similarly to the Ibis, Doodle breaks expectations and survives only to fall to the same fate in the end, death. This …show more content…
Aunt Nicey says that dead birds are bad luck, then adds "Specially red dead birds!" (Hurst 602). When the author finds Doodle, he is “huddled beneath a red nightshade bush beside the road”(Hurst ?) The narrator himself makes the connection, “I began to weep, and the tear-blurred vision in red before me looked very familiar.”(Hurst ?) It reminds him of the death of the Ibis, also described through red. Consistently throughout “The Scarlet Ibis” red is referenced when something dies or will die. The Ibis is red and dies under a bleeding tree and Doodle is found dead beside the red nightshade bush, red from his own blood. Doodle is also described as red when he was born, so both Doodle and the Scarlet Ibis are born red and die red. This makes for a more interesting story because as “The Scarlet Ibis” progresses, the reader can pick up on clues and piece them together once the resolution is