28 pages • 56 minutes read
James HurstThe Scarlet Ibis
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Coming of Age: Pride and Social Acceptance
World War I occurred between July 1914 and November 1918. The narrator was 13 when the war ended, and the national climate surrounding the war indirectly informed his formative years and his actions during that time. The story intertwines the narrator’s feelings of fear, pride, shame, and guilt to parallel the social atmosphere of his rural North Carolina community. By 1918, North Carolinians had served in all major battles at the Western Front, resulting in thousands of injured and killed soldiers. Although the narrator does not fully understand that the “strange names” his family discusses are battle locations, his mother’s prayers for a slain neighborhood boy situate the war within reach of the Armstrong family. The social expectations of the period shape the narrator’s reactions to his and Doodle’s “failures.”
The narrator attributes his pride and shame as the motivating factors to teach Doodle to walk and the inspiration for his attempts to train Doodle in athletic pursuits: “They did not know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (50). The narrator’s shame positions Doodle as an object of possession. Doodle’s only status within the story is his relation to the narrator, so by extension, how the community views Doodle applies also to the narrator. Essentially, the narrator is afraid of being perceived as weak or inferior. The narrator relates that rather than feeling delight in Doodle’s ability to walk, his main motivation is the shame he feels about his brother’s disabilities. However, the narrator does not overtly address the social pressures informing his behavior toward his brother. The narrator passively references “Dix Hill,” which is an allusion to a psychiatric hospital. The fear of Doodle being placed in a psychiatric hospital also motivates the narrator to help his brother succeed in the eyes of their community.
In hindsight, the narrator reflects on the paradoxical duality of pride: “I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death” (50). The narrator believes that his pride motivated him to help Doodle gain life skills. As Doodle learns to walk, this pride brings life to Doodle, allowing him to experience the world more fully. Yet, at the same time, the pride makes the elder brother ashamed of Doodle’s inability to engage in the boyhood pursuits the narrator views as necessary for a meaningful life. Societal pressure again informs how the narrator perceives his brother. Comparatively, if Doodle is not viewed as “normal” as their peers, then Doodle runs the risk of being placed in a psychiatric hospital or socially “othered.” Similarly, Mama’s “othering” of the scarlet ibis, whom she demands the boys not touch for fear of disease, suggests that differences are not accepted in the Armstrong home as well as their community. For this reason, the narrator feels an overwhelming need to shape his brother by society’s standards.
Pride becomes the narrator’s tragic flaw as his attempts to force Doodle to acquire physical skills eventually cause Doodle’s death. In the final segment of the story, the narrator’s need for social acceptance overshadows Doodle’s physical health. The narrator takes Doodle to Horsehead Landing hoping to train him in swimming and rowing so that Doodle could “keep up with the other boys when he started school” (53). Doodle questions whether being “different” matters, to which the narrator emphatically maintains: “It certainly does” (51). Doodle, however, is too tired to practice his swimming and becomes exhausted after the narrator forces him to row a small skiff through the creek. After the boys exit the boat, Doodle collapses, and the narrator realizes that his plan to teach Doodle has failed. This knowledge awakens the dark side of the older brother’s pride, and the narrator cruelly runs ahead leaving Doodle behind. Overcome by guilt, the narrator returns for Doodle, but it is too late. He finds his brother’s body beneath a bush. Although not explicitly stated, Doodle’s death stems from the young boy overexerting himself as well as from the narrator’s actions.
An indicator of the narrator’s coming of age is reflected in the closing sentence: “For a long long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain” (53). The narrator shields his brother’s body from the rain because the painful reality of Doodle’s death is too much to bear. In recognizing his brother as a “scarlet ibis,” the narrator undergoes a character change and acknowledges the beauty in Doodle’s differences.
The Beauty and Inevitability of Death
Doodle’s death is the climax of the story, which Hurst foreshadows throughout the text. At the start of the narrative, the narrator’s diction, or word choices, provide vivid descriptions that set a mournful tone and foreboding mood. The flower garden he views has “rotting brown magnolia petals” and ironweeds growing “rank” (48), suggesting decay. The empty nest of an oriole is a cradle that holds nothing, and the smell of the cemetery flowers permeates the house where Doodle once lived, “speaking softly the names of the dead” (48). Thus, the atmosphere of the story offers the narrator’s sense of sadness and lament even before the tragic events are known.
From his birth, Doodle’s life is marked by death. Everyone but Aunt Nicey believes that Doodle will die from his disabilities, so Doodle’s father has a small coffin built in preparation for his infant son’s death. Although Doodle survives, the coffin remains housed in the family’s barn. At one point, the narrator shows his little brother the casket, “telling him how we all believed he would die” (49). This hidden coffin, which is covered with rat poison and contains another empty nest, haunts Doodle. The coffin’s presence signals the inevitability of Doodle’s death and more broadly suggests the inescapability of human mortality, especially for those who are frail and beautiful like the scarlet ibis and Doodle. Furthermore, the narrator remarks that Doodle’s original name, William Armstrong, “sounds good only on a tombstone” (48), which further foreshadows Doodle’s death.
Thematically, the beauty of death emerges through the death of the scarlet ibis itself, which lands in the bleeding tree and falls to earth, still and broken. While the rest of the family returns to their lunch, Doodle focuses his attention on the dead bird, telling his mother, “I’m going to bury him” (52). Preceding to dig a grave and drag the ibis with a piece of string, Doodle engages in a funerary ritual, singing the hymn, “Shall We Gather at the River.” This moment, while showcasing Doodle’s concern for the natural world and respect for the bird, also foreshadows the boy’s death later that day.
The story ends with Doodle’s death. He, like the scarlet ibis, dies beneath red vegetation, his body posture in death echoing that of the bird. The narrator mourns upon discovering Doodle. He holds his brother’s body and weeps. The narrator also recognizes in this final moment Doodle’s similarity to the bird, describing his dead brother as “my fallen scarlet ibis” (53).
Superstition and the Natural World
The natural world and the story’s idyllic rural setting are central to the narrative. Through sensory details, vivid imagery, and personification, the narrator depicts the natural world as a key character in “The Scarlet Ibis.” In the introductory retrospective, the narrator’s view of his natural setting is grim and rife with decay. In place of the vibrant bleeding tree stands a grindstone, or millstone, which is a religious symbol of punishment. The grindstone denotes a final resting place as well as the narrator’s eternal guilt. The narrator introduces the landscape as if imparting a eulogy for those he has lost. However, in the action of the story, the narrator offers a youthful perception of the natural world that is “rich and warm” (51) and offers the boys hope, reprieve, and childhood joy. In particular, the narrator shares Old Woman Swamp—“the only beauty [he] knew” (49)—with Doodle. It is at the lush swamp that the boys happily play, bond, and share boyhood dreams. However, just as the natural world provides the boys with paradise, it brings also blight, destructive storms, and death.
Several characters in Hurst’s story rely on superstitious and religious beliefs, attempting to read physical signs in the natural world as harbingers of evil or markers of life. While Doodle’s family members view his unusual birth with fear and dismay, Aunt Nicey views Doodle’s arrival into the world differently. In insisting that Doodle will live “because he was born in a caul and cauls were made from Jesus’ nightgown” (48), Aunt Nicey relies on superstition to interpret the world and assess Doodle’s future. Furthermore, Aunt Nicey contends that the caul (intact amniotic sac) provides Doodle with special potential: “[C]aul babies should be treated with special respect since they might turn out to be saints” (49). Indeed, her prediction seems justified as Doodle thrives and learns to crawl, talk, and eventually walk. He also exhibits an unusual appreciation for beauty, has a vivid imagination, and treats the dead ibis with holy respect.
Other characters also rely on the natural world for signs. Mama, for instance, attempts to predict a storm based on the call of a rain frog. Doodle, seeming to agree with his mother’s belief in physical signs as indications of natural occurrences, declares that he heard a frog in the swamp. The story again validates the characters’ superstitious interpretation of the world as a severe rainstorm arrives later that same day. Perhaps the most important prediction is Aunt Nicey’s final declaration: “Dead birds is bad luck” (52). Her statement, brought on by the discovery of the dying scarlet ibis and Doodle’s decision to perform funeral rites for the bird, foreshadows the death of Doodle and once again shows the validity of a superstition. The narrator’s inclusion of natural occurrences as signs of events to come suggests his own superstitious nature. Additionally, the relationship between the narrator and nature underscores the duality of humans and nature as both beautiful yet destructive forces.
