The quote, “Don’t fix what’s not broken” by Robert Atkins is a great example of why the narrator in “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst ended up being the reason for his little brother’s demise. The short story opens up with the narrator reminiscing about his time with his younger brother, Doodle. His younger brother Doodle was a child born with a serious medical condition, but even though the narrator was warned–many times–on how Doodle can’t do things like “normal” kids, he decided to ignore it and still try to “help” him overcome some of his challenges–not understanding that his condition isn’t something that can be fixed. Throughout the story, the narrator keeps trying to push Doodle and doesn’t seem to understand why he can’t do simple tasks, even calling him a “burden” (p.2) since the “doctor says he mustn’t get too excited, too hot, too, cold or too tired and he must always be treated gently” (p.2). …show more content…
But in the end the narrator ends up pushing him too far, causing him to die like an exhausted scarlet ibis bird and regret trying to fix his brother Doodle, even though he didn’t need fixing. With this, we can conclude that the narrator is conflicted between his love for his brother and his pride that he must fulfill. In the end, his love ends up not succeeding over his pride, causing him to act cruel to his brother that he cherished so much. At the beginning of the story, we are first introduced to how the narrator feels about his younger brother Doodle, saying how Doodle was a “nice crazy, like someone you meet in your dreams” (page 1) but was also a brother who was “a burden in many ways” (page