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Doodle's Death In The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst

572 Words3 Pages

Imagine this, you are six years old outside in a thunder and lightning storm. Everywhere it's pouring rain, there's deafening thunder roaring all around you, and the only light is between flashes of lightning. You try to cling to your brother to leave but he keeps walking faster you can’t keep up so you call out “Brother, Brother, don't leave me! Don't leave me!” Then you watch as your brother leaves you behind, running as fast as he can while you're standing there stranded in the terrible storm left to die. That is what happened to Doodle in James Hurst's “The Scarlet Ibis” a short story about the struggle of having an invalid brother. In “The Scarlet Ibis” I think that the Narrator should be responsible for Doodles death because he didn't help Doodle when he could've because he was being angry and selfish. …show more content…

He never really cared that things he might do to Doodle could kill him because of his condition. “I made him swim till he turned blue” pg. 357 and “Wherever we went I purposely walked fast, although he kept up his face turned red and his eyes became glazed.”pg. 357. With a normal boy swimming till they turned blue would be fine, it wouldn't kill the boy he’d just have to breathe and he’d be better but Doodle wasn't even supposed to walk so swimming could kill him. In the second quote it says that he purposely walked fast, if you cared about someone you wouldn’t have made them walk till their face gets red and their eyes become glazed. You wouldn’t purposely do it either which is what the Narrator clearly did. The Narrator was never sympathetic to Doodles condition, that is clearly true, but it was this factor that gave Doodle freedom but also led to his

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