The Scarlet Ibis

Introduction

"The Scarlet Ibis," by James Hurst, was first released in the July 1960 topic of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. The article is furthermore accessible in Elements of Literature: Third Course (Ebor 5). The article focuses on the worried connection between two juvenile boys: the narrator and his brain and bodily handicapped male sibling, Doodle. It discovers the confrontations between love and dignity and sketches vigilance to the consequences of familial and societal anticipations on those who are handicapped. The narrative unfolds contrary to the backdrop of the carnage of World War I, with its affiliated topics of the hazards of trying to make other ones over in one's own likeness, the brotherhood of all mankind, and the waste of life producing from a need of love and compassion. In the course of the article, Doodle becomes symbolically recognized with an uncommon and attractive scarlet ibis which, finding itself in a hostile natural environment, dies. The ibis's article resonates not only with Doodle's own destiny but with the destiny of those from the United States and other nations who passed away in the war.

 

James Hurst

 

James Hurst Courtesy of James Hurst

"The Scarlet Ibis" was the first and only work of Hurst's to accomplish prevalent recognition. It rapidly accomplished the rank of a classic, being reprinted in numerous high-school and school publications text books. Its worth to scholars of publications lies in its wealthy use of such apparatus as foreshadowing and symbolism, its perceptive use of setting to commentary on the activity, and its compassionate remedy of universal human standards and limitations, as well as its convincing, character-driven plot. In an interview with this reviewer, Hurst said that he composed the article as part of a method of approaching to periods with the malfunction of his early vocalizing vocation, but that the work has no direct autobiographical relevance and is a "work of imagination."

 

The Scarlet Ibis Summary

"The Scarlet Ibis" undoes with the narrator, Brother, reminiscing about an amazing happening that took location when he was a juvenile young man at his family dwelling at the end of the summer of 1918. A scarlet ibis, and bizarre bird that does not pertain in the narrator's district, set down in a tree in the family garden. This recollection sparks off another in Brother's mind: the birth of his brain and bodily handicapped male sibling, Doodle, when Brother was six years old. Nobody anticipated Doodle ...