Doodle Armstrong Character Analysis

Standing before the podium is a leader with their back straight, their feet planted firmly on the ground, and their voice reaching out to the people around them. Men, women, and children all stand together listening to their leader with their minds and hearts. Throughout history, there have been numerous leaders, such as the famous Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Gandhi. These individuals all shared the same qualities to make them successful leaders, and these qualities helped them to accomplish their goals. In Daniel Goleman’s article “What Makes a Leader?,” Goleman mentions five important qualities of a good leader: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.

“No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson. This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson truly shows how no matter how hard you want to “fit in” or change something about yourself or others, you shouldn’t force yourself to change who your true character is. The character of Brother from the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, was characterized as someone who does not want to be seen as “different”.

According to the 2012 US Census, about one in five people are living with disability. To some, it is just a number, one that does not affect them, but to the families of these people, it’s something that is imbedded in every day of their lives. That’s how it is for the protagonist of “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst. The protagonist hopes for a brother, but when William Armstrong is born, he is born severely disabled. The protagonist was so desperate for a normal brother that he set out to train his brother to get over everything his disability prevented him from doing.

In “The Scarlet Ibis” one of the most important characters was the brother of Doodle. He is also the one telling the story. He is really important to the story because in a way he shaped Doodles personality. He took care of Doodle, pushed him to walk and killed doodle. He is very determined, somewhat careless, and selfish.

If you had a brother that you loved so much, would you want him to die? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Doodle and Brother had a special bond. The two of them always went to Old Woman Swamp together, they would make necklaces and crowns out of flowers and wire grass, Brother even taught Doodle how to walk. When Doodle was born, the doctor said he will not live long, so Doodle’s death was expected.

The short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst elucidates the theme “selfish people aren’t the ones that suffer their selfishness: it's those around them, in which it harms”. The story is about a boy who received a brother after six years of being an only child, but because of an unfortunate disease, his brother wasn’t expected to live long. He unexpectedly lived far longer that anticipated, so his parents finally named him: William Armstrong. Because William wasn’t “all there”, his brother had plans to kill him with a pillow, but his plan was corrupted when his brother smiled at him, showing that he was “all there”. The narrator (who is also William’s big brother) renamed his brother Doodle.

The brother was easily the guilty suspect in this case. The question here is whether or not Doodle’s cause of death was his brother’s own pride. Throughout the book, The Scarlet Ibis, Doodle’s brother gives us a plethora of quality examples as to why the death of his brother was surely his to bear. The brother was overly prideful.

Brother was cruel to Doodle. He shows this by making Doodle touch his own coffin. ‘One time I showed him his casket, telling him how we all believed he would die. ’(418) Another example when Brother was cruel to Doodle was at the end of the story when Brother left Doodle in the rain.

In the story the Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst the narrator knows what he did was wrong. In the end, he realized that his own pride was the downfall for his own little brother. For wanting a normal little brother and not a crippled one. As stated on page 2 “ It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make my plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow”. Clearly, in this sentence, it shows that the narrator would rather have no brother at all than having one that is crippled.

After reading the Scarlet Ibis for homework we came into class and discussed. Many good points and counterpoints were made throughout. We discovered that the narrator was a selfish boy who was very worried about his reputation and how people saw him. In the story it said, “Doodle only walked because I was ashamed to have a crippled brother.” That shows that even the narrator saw how horrible he was being yet he continued on.

In the book “Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst Brother don’t really care about his brother Doodle very much. He don’t like that he is different and doesn’t like that he can’t do anything on his own. But Brother learns to give Doodle a chance and ends up loving him. Brother is a pretty good brother by the end and of the book.

Shame is a powerful emotion that leads people to do things absentmindedly, that could lead to dreadful outcomes. In James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis” Doodle is a disabled child that can not do things that others can do easily. Brother tries to shape Doodle into a regular kid, which ends badly. When Doodle doesn't improve at as fast as his brother wants him to, he only pushes him harder. Brothers sense of shame leads to Doodle being pushed too hard and eventually dying.