“The Scarlet Ibis” is the story of a young boy named Doodle who was born with birth defects the family was told he wouldn’t make it, they prepared for his death. Soon to find out he would overcome much of the “impossible”. He did have many limits and many “don’ts” but he is able to do lots of what they said he’d never be able to do. Although the things he overcame came to an end as he passed at the end of the story. The short story by Hurst expresses symbolism through connection between characters and the seasons. Seasons? Why seasons when the text discusses Doodle’s life story? As you know no one had hope that he’d even live as long as he did, but instead of first talking about Doodle, Hurst opens up with: “It was the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree”. This line is the opening for the short story it was the first time Hurst talked about the scarlet ibis and the first time he began talking about seasons. In this line seems as though the bringing up of seasons can give us a little bit of information on the setting and time period. The season affects the weather and at this time it wouldn’t be sunny it’d be gloomy as this is also when Doodle was born. Seems as though the author uses the season to foreshadow the occurrences soon to happen in the story. As when it's gloomy negative things occur. You may be thinking how is the start of a new life negative, because it wasn’t just the start of a life it was when the family found out Doodle had birth defects and would not make it.
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'The Role of Seasons in The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst'
After three months he was still living his life he began to crawl which no one thought he’d achieve that much but he did. He now goes places with his older brother the authors explain how Doodle was touching the grass and saying it was pretty. The older brother than says: “I would gather wild flowers, wild violets, honeysuckle, yellow jasmine, snakeflowers, and water lilies”. We can suggest through the way they explain the nature of the setting around them it’d be changing seasons. We can suggest it’s sunny because the flowers need sunlight. Through these suggestions we can say the weather is now ‘good’ and this shows symbolism in season because at this time the author tells us that Doodle has begun to crawl. I would say this is a positive thing happening during a certain season with good weather. Which supports that the author is using seasons to signify good occurrences.
We are then introduced to the scarlet ibis which was found dead in the family’s backyard. “A Scarlet Ibis! How many miles it had traveled to die like this, in our yard, beneath the bleeding tree”. The bird had flown miles through the storm. We are told at this time there is a storm which signifies the story is now in a different time period it is now another season which had ‘bad’ weather. As when we are told this the death of the scarlet ibis occurs and soon after the death of Doodle. Through this I can suggest the author has used the seasons to signify whether a good or bad thing will happen next. Through the way the story is told and the way seasons and weather have a large part in this story can suggest the foreshadowing of soon to come occurrences. The author used symbolism through the season purposely because before every larger event he added in something to suggest the weather and/or season before. Although if he just uses it to give us a time period and setting it’d be a large coincidence that it affected the events occurring. The connections he makes between characters and events were truly based on the season.
