James Hurst’s short story, “The Scarlet Ibis,” has a theme, pride is egregious, which Hurst demonstrates through a series of quotes with the main ideas of offering help only due to pride, the belief of infallibility, and pushing someone farther than their limits. The theme can be first expressed when Brother only teaches Doodle to walk only because of his pride. After Brother teaches Doodle to walk, he reflects upon his reasons of doing so in the excerpt,“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, 4). In the previously mentioned situation pride is egregious because Brother is embarrassed about Doodles …show more content…
It marred Brother’s pride because Doodle not meeting his goal made him realize he is not infallible. The passage, “The knowledge that Doodle’s and my plans had come to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty within me awakened. I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind,” represents how Brother’s marred pride had made him cruel (Hurst, 10). Pride is egregious in this situation because it causes brother to be cruel. Pride was so important to Brother he ran away while Doodle was struggling to just walk. A aforementioned excerpt explains that Brother is ashamed of having a disabled brother, so this caused Brother to try to make Doodle an “ideal” brother through a “training program” which Doodle was destined to fail. Ultimately Brothers pride, which caused him to be cruel, contributed to Doodle’s early death. In conclusion the theme of the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis,” by James Hurst is pride is egregious and he demonstrates it through a series of passages with the main ideas of helping someone due to pride, the belief of infallibility and lastly to push someone farther than their