The Scarlet Ibis Figurative Language Analysis

“A bird the size of a chicken, with scarlet feathers and long legs, was perched precariously, Its wings hung down loosely, and as we watched, a feather dropped away and floated slowly down through the green leaves.” In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” a bird that was out of it's environment fell from a tree and died. The bird is a symbol for Doodle and the bird represents him. When the bird dies it foreshadows Doodle's death. Hurst uses figurative language and symbolism to create a gloomy tone in his short story by using symbolism and figurative language.
In the Scarlet Ibis there are multiple times where imagery is used to explain many things. The scarlet ibis in the story symbolizes bad luck, this may be the cause of Doodles death. Doodle was told not to touch the bird but he decided to anyways and he ended up dying. “I began to weep, and the

"Doodle!" I screamed above the pounding storm and threw my body to the earth above his. For a long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain.” The story also shows symbolism through the coffin, the coffin symbolizes death. The reason it symbolizes death is because The reason that the coffin symbolizes bad luck is because the coffin was built for Doodles death but Doodle didn’t die so there was a beathly vibe given off by the coffin. “One day I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him how we all had believed he would die. It was covered with a film of Paris green sprinkled to kill the rats, and screech owls had built a nest inside it.”
The symbolism used in the story The Scarlet Ibis helps create a gloomy tone. One example that Hurst uses is the coffin as