“The Scarlet Ibis” Essay Have you ever known a person to be responsible for his own brother’s death? That’s what happened in “The Scarlet Ibis”. The narrator (whose name is not known) inadvertently caused his brother Doodle’s death, when the narrator ran from Doodle in a rainstorm, even when Doodle called out to his brother and told him not to leave him. Doodle had a condition which caused him to be different from everyone else, and his brother helped him learn to walk, and tried to teach him other things, such as swimming. In the rainstorm, the narrator ran from Doodle, and Doodle must have fallen and died somewhere, because when his brother came back for him, Doodle was dead. The narrator is responsible for Doodle’s death because he overworked Doodle and expected …show more content…
One example of this in the story is that, “They did not know that I did it form 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” (Hurst, 355). This shows how the narrator was selfish, and how when he ran from Doodle in the rainstorm, it was his spite that was showing through, which went hand-in-hand with his pride. Another example is, “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set out to teach him” (Hurst, 353). This shows the narrator only cares about himself, and doesn’t really care about Doodle walking; he cares about having a brother who can walk, because he is embarrassed about having a brother who can’t. Also, he only wants Doodle to walk so that the narrator doesn’t have to take Doodle around everywhere. If Doodle could walk, he could walk himself with his brother. All together, the narrator’s pride made him run from Doodle, and eventually killed Doodle. To sum up, the narrator’s pride was the main cause of the downfall of