”The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst

In the short story The Scarlet Ibis, written by James Hurst, is a sad tale of an older brother trying to teach his younger brother who is not blessed with horrible disease that doesn’t allow him to be able to walk like us who often take it for granted. In the first place the brother only wants Doodle to feel like a normal boy because he doesn’t want him to be teased by his classmates or any other people because of his disabilities. I quote from the story “Doodle was my brother and he was going to cling to me forever, no matter what I did, so I dragged him across the burning cotton fields to share with him the only beauty I knew, Old Woman Swamp.”

The brother also didn’t want to be burdened by his brother’s disabilities he said: “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set but to teach him.” He wanted to show Doodle the world that he sees the place that he lives that makes him so happy and that he feels that it is the prettiest place on the planet. Doodle doesn’t get to see it all because he is not able to go swimming in the ponds and isn’t able to run in the fields that his brother does on a daily basis. The brother sets out to teach him to walk and won’t give up until Doodle is able to walk on his own without his go-cart. “I took him by the arms and stood up. He collapsed onto the grass like a half-empty flour sack. It was as if he had no bones in his little legs.” In the end I think that the brother ended up learning more than Doodle did because he was given the gift of patience and in the end he still has to deal with the fact that he “killed” his brother.