The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst Essay

, Research Paper

The Scarlet Ibis-Analyze 3 themes. Discuss.

In the short story The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, has various themes. A theme is a subject, topic or ideas that happen throughout a short story, essay, or a composition. The three themes in The Scarlet Ibis are Doodle never gives up, his older brother loves him and unforeseen things happen.

One theme is that Doodle never gave up on the challenges of life. When he was born everybody thought that he would die, but several months after he was born they finally decided to name him. The doctor and his parents said that Doodle would never be able to get out of bed. To everyone’s surprise when they put him on the floor he began to learn how to crawl, but he learned how to talk before he learned how to crawl. They also thought that he could never walk because he was so small and fragile. Doodle learned how to walk. It took while for him to learn, but he did it and never gave up.

Another theme is that his older brother loves him. Despite the fact that he embarrasses his older brother he still takes the time to teaching him how to walk. He also takes Doodle every where with him. His older brother shows him love by talking about the future and giving Doodle hope. His brother never gave up on Doodle, he kept pushing him and teaching him to walk. When Doodle died his older brother was a great loss because even though Doodle embarrassed him, he still had spent all his spear time with him.

Lastly, a theme in the story is that unforeseen things happen. The fact that Doodle lived as long has he did was very unexpected. When he was born the parents bought him a small coffin. Then they waited three months to name him. They did not even think he would live a couple of days, never mind years. Once they realized he was going to live they did not expect him to get out of bed. Once again they were wrong. Doodle learned to talk, crawl and walk. Basically everything that Doodle did was very unexpected.

Themes in the short story help the reader to understand Doodle and his older brother. The themes are very important to the story because they show Doodle to be strong even though everybody thought he was weak. They also showed how his brother loved Doodle by teaching him many things and being more patient with him than his parents.