The Scarlet Ibis Literary Analysis

In the short story, ‘The Scarlet Ibis’, when the narrator was a young boy of the age of six his “craziest little brother a boy ever had” was born. In the story, it tells how pride can make you do cruel things to gain it back. The family did not expect the baby to live for long, they did not even name him until he was three months old. They named him William Armstrong, “such a name only sounds good on a tombstone.” Once William started to crawl, he crawled backwards, which “made him look like a doodlebug.” The narrator nicknamed his brother Doodle from this observation. “Although Doodle learned to crawl he showed no signs of walking” the narrator’s dad built him a go-cart. It was the narrator’s job to lug Doodle around, “if I so much as picked up my cap, he’d start crying to go with me.” The storyteller got so tired of Doodle tagging along he decided to teach him how to walk. …show more content…
Even though Doodle learned to walk, the narrator wasn’t happy with just that. He wanted to “teach him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight.” One afternoon at the dinner table a noise from the yard drew the family away from their seats and to the door. There they found a frail Scarlet Ibis, that died short after, Doodle buried it. Later the narrator and his brother got into a skiff and floated down the creek with the tide, Doodle rowed them back to shore. When Doodle got out of the boat he collapsed onto the mud, disappointing the narrator. The narrator walked faster as Doodle struggled to keep up, then the narrator started to run. "Brother, Brother, don't leave me! Don't leave