In "The Scarlet Ibis," there are a number of symbolic connections between the ibis and Doodle. Firstly, in the opening lines of the story, Brother remembers seeing an ibis come to a tree, and it is that memory which triggers the memory of Doodle. For Brother, the arrival of this bird is linked to the arrival of his little brother.
Secondly, the ibis is an unusual, tropical bird which stands out from others, and Doodle has a similar quality. His physical weakness and fragility, for example, make him different from other boys. Note, at the end of the story, how Brother refers to Doodle as my "fallen scarlet ibis." Through this phrase, Brother is alluding to this unique quality about his brother and his strong desire to protect him, just as you would protect a special, endangered bird.
Finally, toward the end of the story, the scarlet ibis dies and Brother insists on burying the bird. The death of the ibis not only foreshadows Doodle's death, it makes an important point about beauty. Namely, we cannot always protect the beautiful and the fragile. This idea applies directly to Doodle; Brother, no matter how hard he tries, cannot save him from death.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
What are the symbolic connections between the ibis and Doodle?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
There are a plethora of rules that Jonas and the other citizens must follow. Again, page numbers will vary given the edition of the book tha...
-
The poem contrasts the nighttime, imaginative world of a child with his daytime, prosaic world. In the first stanza, the child, on going to ...
-
The given two points of the exponential function are (2,24) and (3,144). To determine the exponential function y=ab^x plug-in the given x an...
-
Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe, is a novel. A novel is a genre defined as a long imaginative work of literature written in prose. ...
-
Hello! This expression is already a sum of two numbers, sin(32) and sin(54). Probably you want or express it as a product, or as an expressi...
-
A tempest is a violent storm and considering that the first scene of the play takes place in such a storm, the title is quite fitting. It is...
-
Macbeth is reflecting on the Weird Sisters' prophecy and its astonishing accuracy. The witches were totally correct in predicting that M...
No comments:
Post a Comment