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Gratification

Jade Nava
Humanities 1/3
1/20/15

For pride is is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or


contentment, or even common sense -C.S. Lewis. The Scarlet Ibis written by James
Hurst is about a boy who is embarrassed by his brother, Doodle. He is really ashamed
but learns to accept him and his disability. At first the narrator is shameful of his disabled
brother but at the end he learns to love him and realizes the importance of love and
acceptance.

In the beginning of the story the narrator is ashamed of his brother. When his
mother tells the narrator that the brother might not be all there he starts to think, It was
bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there
was unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow.
(Hurst,1) The narrator shows how he cant stand the fact that his brother is not all there
or, in other words, handicapped. He could not handle it so he planned to kill his brother,
then he wouldnt have to deal with the shame anymore. When Doodle showed he could
walk, everyone was happy but what was going through the narrator's head was, They
did not know that I did it for myself, that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder
than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a
crippled brother. (Hurst, 3) This shows that even though he did something good, his
intentions were bad and it was his pride that lead him to doing it. This also shows that
he knew he was ashamed and he knew too much pride is bad, but he just couldnt

escape it, it help him prisoner. Throughout the beginning the narrator struggles with
accepting his brother but he learns to overcome his pride.

At the end of the story the narrator learns to accept his brother. What runs
through the narrator's mind after he found Doodle dead was, "for a long time, it seemed
forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain."
(Hurst,6). When he says 'sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis', it shows that he is now
protecting Doodle and thinks of him as a beautiful rare bird. Then he says 'heresy of
rain', so he thinks the rain is mocking him in a way and he is in a state of denial of what
happened. When the narrator reflects on how he treated Doodle, he says, "There is
within me (and with sadness I have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the
stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at
times I was mean to doodle." (Hurst, 2). This shows that he did really did love his
brother but his pride just got the best of him. This also shows that he knew he was
mean to doodle but in his mind at the time all he cared about was his image. The
narrator battled with his love and his pride, in the end he learned acceptance but by
then it was too late.

In the beginning all the narrator cares about is pride, then he learns acceptance
and love. At first, the narrator lets pride overrule him and he's really rude and mean to D
oodle. Then he starts pushing him to do better. In the end he learns to accept and love
his brother, but by then its too late. Pride is a powerful thing and it can make you hurt
the ones you love if youre not careful enough.

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