Pride In The Scarlet Ibis

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Pride: Life or Death Through “The Scarlet Ibis”, James Hurst characterizes the narrator as egocentric to convey the idea that pride leads people to make careless and needless mistakes due to selfishness. Egomaniacs would do anything they could to reach their own needs and desires for self-advancement, which would result in disastrous turns in events. After seeing his brother, William Armstrong, the narrator is really disappointed by William’s disabilities. He cannot walk, cannot jump, cannot swim. The narrator is ashamed of having a crippled brother, he even names William “Doodle” because of his weaknesses. The narrator cannot help with his pride, so he decides to physically hurt Doodle, “It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having …show more content…
The narrator’s, or in other words, Brother’s pride does create a facsimile of real life for Doodle, but in the end, it crumbles, brings to its knees by pride and selfishness. Pride is harmful and dangerous. Since Brother feels embarrassed by Doodle’s disabilities and doesn’t succeed killing him, he starts to teach Doodle how to walk. The action taken by the narrator was beneficial, but after all, Brother only helps Doodle by virtue of his shame. “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” (9). Brother looks back and substantiates that he is humiliated by his little brother, and his pride drives him to teach Doodle to walk. He acts without thinking of the consequences as the “slave” of his pride. As mentioned earlier, Brother even plot plans on killing Doodle. Consequently, his pride blinds him from seeing what he does to Doodle, and Doodle’s possibility of a bright future throughout the story. The narrator emphasizes ample amounts of pride and ego. Pride and selfishness can take over one’s mind when they are overwhelmed with shame, causing enormous circumstances (in the story
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