The Scarlet Ibis Symbolism Essay

In James Hurst’s, “The Scarlet Ibis”, the narrator uses the motif of red to describe the death of Doodle. Color red associates with blood which everyone would think of “Bleeding tree” is frequently appearing in this story, and this symbolizes Doodle’s death which is “A grind stone stands where the bleeding tree stood…”(89). The bleeding tree is just like the scene where Doodle dies, but the readers would not know that Doodle would die eventually and bleeding tree is illustrating Doodle but the readers would not understand how bleeding free associates with Doodle until they read the story till the end. This is how the author makes the reader to be suspicious and think about the word choice. Also, the bleeding tree is standing next to a grindstone. …show more content…
Hurst uses this to show how Brother feels guilty about everything he done to Doodle. The grindstone which is the Brother and Bleeding tree which is Doodle are next to each other, which makes the Brother remember about the days they spent together and also the Brother could always recall the memories with Doodle when he was young. The most famous character, the Scarlet Ibis is described as a “big red bird”(97) and the narrator explains how the scarlet ibis has been weakened and close to death. The scarlet ibis is small and fragile like Doodle, but more importantly the scarlet ibis is out of place in their yard. The scarlet ibis is not indigenous to Doodle's neighborhood, it's as if the bird is lost. Doodle was out of place in his world too because he was different, small, fragile, mentally and physically impaired. Doodle feels an empathy and instinctively think he has to help the bird. He reflects himself on the bird that he already knows how to be alone and no one look after you. “I’m not hungry”(98) is repeated two times when his parents ask him to sit down and continue to eat dinner. He is not bothering to eat because he is focused on the scarlet