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Foreshadowing
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
“The Scarlet Ibis” is a short story that can be considered a coming-of-age tale. Coming-of-age stories typically center on a child protagonist’s loss of innocence as they face challenges and are forced to mature. In “The Scarlet Ibis,” the narrator Brother shifts, over the course of the story, from a carefree child (who is, like most children, sometimes kind and sometimes cruel) to one reckoning with immense loss, when his brother Doodle dies due to his negligence.
Doodle’s death, at the tender age of six, also makes this story an example of the tragedy genre. Tragedy, in literature, is centered on conveying a character (or family’s) suffering in order to evoke a cathartic response in readers. In particular, tragic stories often feature suffering that was avoidable. The following passage, which comes near the end of the story as Brother finds Doodle’s dead body amongst the storm wreckage, captures the tragic nature of the story:
“Doodle! Doodle!” I cried, shaking him, but there was no answer but the ropy rain. He lay very awkwardly, with his head thrown far back, making his vermillion neck appear unusually long and slim. His little legs bent sharply at the knees, had never before seemed so fragile, so thin.
Hurst makes several narrative decisions here in order to amplify the tragedy in this moment. First, he sets the scene amidst heavy rainfall, adding to the drama and heaviness of the moment. He also highlights the “slim” nature of Doodle’s neck as well as the fact that his body “had never before seemed so fragile, so thin.” All of these descriptions capture the fact that Doodle is a young child who should not have died this way.
Related Themes:
