The Scarlet Ibis Essay

The story starts out as the narrator of the story has a recollection of his past when his younger brother Doodle was still alive. The narrator tells how everyone believed Doodle is crippled mentally and physically. However, Doodle is a normal human being mentally, but has some difficulties physically. The narrator wants Doodle to become a normal boy, so he teaches him all the activities any boy Doodles age would do. One day, Doodle and the narrator were playing in the fields. A large storm came and both had to run home before it became too hard to handle. Doodle started running after his brother, but couldnt withstand it, and eventually, he got tired and had to rest. The narrator felt mad by Doodle and deserted him. A few minutes later, the narrator discovered Doodle under a tree, blood trickling from his mouth, dead.

I think the world needs more people such as the narrator, who is willing to benefit others lives in a tenderhearted way, to make anther's life better and happier. For example,when he taught doodle how to walk. The narrator later does a simple task by taking his brother down to the swamp. By that action, Doodle is enthralled in happiness because he sees something he has never seen before.

However I do not condone what he did to his disabled brother. What the narrator did what extremely selfish. He let his pride get the best of him and he payed the ultimate price. I think that if I was in his situation I would have definitely gone back no matter what the circumstances. To me family comes before anything.

In the story, the narrators pride sometimes takes him over and eventually,it kills his brother Doodle. At the end of the story, The narrators carelessness and great amount of pride in himself as well as in Doodle ends up in the death of Doodle. The choice the narrator makes in not helping Doodle run home is tragic, since a life could have been saved if the narrator had helped his brother. The narrators actions for teaching his brother to walk is supposedly to make it easier on himself by not having to drag his brother everywhere he goes, which is unfortunate because he isnt teaching Doodle for a positive cause.

When the narrator taught doodle to walk it was only because he didn't want to drag him around so it was somewhat selfish.

I think that the moral of this story is that pride does have limitations. Having pride to an extent is fine, but having too much pride isnt; its harmful. Having too much pride can distract someone away from his or her main objective and often makes that person carried away. As shown in the story, the narrators pride helped his brother Doodle walk; but the narrators pride also killed his brother. A lesson to be learned is, pride goes to an extent. Dont overuse it.