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Brother's Pained Lesson: The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst

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Brother's Pained Lesson “The Scarlet Ibis”, by James Hurst is an amazing short story set on a cotton farm in 1918. In the story the narrator is called Brother and is the oldest son in a family, but a new addition to the family is added, a little boy named Doodle. Doodle wasn't expected to live long because of defects, but Brother doesn't want a disabled younger brother and pushes Doodle to his limit. He makes him walk and do activities even though he's not supposed to for his health. Eventually Doodle dies from too much of the narrator's pushing. Doodle taught Brother the lesson that people mistreat the ones they love most. Even though Brother loved Doodle, he would push his anger on him, without thinking about it. He made Doodle touch the coffin that was made for him as an infant, because no one thought he would live. Brother did this just because he was frustrated “One day I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket”(4). When Brother took Doodle to the loft he told Doodle to touch the casket, but Doodle said no and Brother threatened to leave him up there. “ I won't touch it, he said sullenly. Then I'll leave you here by yourself, I threatened”(4). Brother was too upset to think about what he was …show more content…

His parents made the narrator take Doodle outside with him all the time and he hated it. “Take Doodle with you. He was a burden in many ways”(3). Brother would pull the cart as fast as he could making Doodle bump around in the cart, sometimes he would purposely tip the cart over making Doodle fall out. Even though the narrator did that, Doodle never told their mother because he loved being outside with his brother. “Sometimes I accidentally turned him over, but he never told Mama….I could see I was licked. Doodle was my brother and he was going to cling to me forever”(3). Even though Brother thought Doodle was a nuisance he still loved him, even if he sometimes didn't show it

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