Dear Readers of My Blog,
The style of James Hurst was that of a descriptive or narrative approach to attract his readers’ attention. A good example was the opening paragraph where he depicted the scene of the garden, which strongly smelt of death.
He cleverly compared the dead scarlet ibis which was swept away from its habitat to Doodle, who was born physically handicapped and wanted desperately to live up to his brother’s expectations.
Let us move on to character analysis.
Thinking that their son was dying, Doodle’s parents easily succumbed to his fate and feeling sorry for themselves, started preparing for his death. They never even tried to seek help for their child. This shows that they are very simple-minded and accept whatever is put forward to them.
On the contrary, the narrator was extremely determined to make Doodle live like everyone else. However, this is not because of brotherly love but for the selfish reason of not wanting to be laughed at. The narrator pushed Doodle to extremity due to his obstinate character.
Of all, Doodle is the most compassionate member of the family, as can be seen from him being the only one in the family who wanted to bury the scarlet ibis. His love for his brother, as well as his belief in him, resulted in his wanting to live up to the narrator’s expectation, which eventually cost him his life.
With the above analysis, it can be seen that though the family faced the same situation but the approach taken by each member is so very different.
Best Regards,
Nathan
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Hi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteI would like to elaborate on the point you made in the last paragraph. I agree with what you said and I think that this is because of the different generations they grow in and how the society influences their mindset of things and how to react when met with similiar situations. The father and mother probably thinks that a disabled person would be useless in helping them earn money and it might be better off if he could not walk. Doodle probably thinks otherwise as he was just born and never before interacted with the outside world except being with the narrator, the father, mother and Aunt Nicey. To the narrator, Doodle was his only sibling/brother that he could play with while he grows up and have fun with.
Regards,
Ivan
Hi nathan,
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the narrator didn't love Doodle, that whatever he did was all for himself. Remember the last scene where the narrator left doodle? If he had no feelings for doodle, he wouldn't turn back after that. He only left doodle momentarily. Most of all, did you remember that the narrator felt very sorry for what has happened to Doodle? It might be partially because he was feeling guilty, but I think it was because he loved doodle. I also think that after all that the brother did for doodle such as taking him to old woman's swamp was because of love. I think for all the times he was cruel to his brother, it was because of love too. There is a sense of cruelty when you love someone because you want them to do better, to excel.
Regards,
Nicholas