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The Scarlet Ibis Character Analysis Essay

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“The Scarlet Ibis,” written by James Hurst, is a bittersweet story. A weak autistic child is born into a family of cotton farmers. They name the child Doodle, which was given by his older brother. His brother was often cruel, but he pushed Doodle to work to fit in. They fail in their efforts at the end of summer. The older brother gets mad, and Doodle dies. Doodle is overall a favorite character for people because he’s just an incredible character everyone could love. Doodle had a unique personality. His family and older brother thought this as well. His brother even described him, “Doodle was just about the craziest brother a boy ever had.”(Hurst 109) Crazy could also be seen as daring, or a risk taker. Doodle was a risk taker. He stayed with his brother no matter how rough he was with him. Crazy could also mean strange. Doodle came up with strange lies that were extremely crazy. These personality traits also go with Doodles actions. The narrator said, “Doodle could beat me at lying.”(Hurst 113) Doodle lies, which is a bad, but his lies were strange. Creativity is needed for a superior lie. This shows Doodle has terrible habits that stem from good talents. All this goes to show is Doodle is at heart, a talented, though strange, boy. Doodle tried so hard to be like the others boys. He worked at it but could see results, so he asked his …show more content…

He has a weak body that is always likely to go out.. The bother truly found this out, and when it did everything changed. It changed his perception of Doodle. He says, “...I lay sheltering my fallen Scarlet Ibis from the heresy of the rain.”(Hurst 118) Suddenly Doodle is no longer a nuisance. A pest. He is now a rare treasure, to be protected from the rain and anything that goes against them. It shows that while Doodle is now dead, he is also treasured. All in one event Doodle has been perceived different than

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