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Symbolism In The Scarlet Ibis

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Without Doodle It’s Depressing
“It was the clove of seasons,summer was dead but autumn was yet to be born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree. The flower garden was stained with rotting brown magnolia petals, and ironweeds grew rank amid the purple phlox” (Hurst 416). As summer dies the pretty plants begin to die as well, and it leaves a beautiful sadness in the air. James Hurst uses words like ‘rank’ ‘dead’, ‘bleeding’, ‘stained’, and ‘rotting’, words like these wouldn’t set a happy tone for the start of any story. The narrator in “The Scarlet Ibis” only wanted his brother, Doodle, to fit in. Unfortunately, he would always stick out because he couldn’t get too tired, too hot, and too cold. Doodle died from over exhaustion, same …show more content…
One symbol that Hurst used through the text would the bleeding tree. The bleeding tree symbolised the color red, and represented his brother because he was all red, and bloody when he died.The narrator expects Doodle to swim, row and run. Like short-lived, stressed trees, Doodle eventually bleeds to his death. Hurst writes, “A scarlet ibis! How many miles it had traveled to die like this, in our yard, beneath the bleeding tree” (Hurst ). This evidence supports my thesis statement because the bleeding tree symbolizes how sad Doodle’s death was, and how doodle was so red at the time of his death. Another example of symbolism in “The Scarlet Ibis” is the scarlet ibis itself. The scarlet ibis symbolizes the color red and also represents Doodle at his time of death. red represents bad luck, as Doodle’s aunt said. Also the scarlet ibis died from exhaustion as well as doodle and they both died in front of a tree. Hurst writes, “Dead birds is bad luck,” said Aunt Nicey, poking her head from the kitchen door. "Specially red dead birds!" (Hurst ) He also wrote, “I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain” (Hurst ). This also supports my thesis statement because symbolism was one of the ways he created a depressing tone, and he symbolised the scarlet ibis with Doodles death because both of them died in front of a tree from over

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