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Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
“The Scarlet Ibis” is set in the early fall in eastern North Carolina in the 1910s. The family at the center of the story lives in a rural community by the ocean and the two children—Brother and Doodle—spend a lot of time on the water and in nature. The opening lines of the story establish the rural location, as well as the way that Brother (the narrator) is attuned to the natural world around him:
It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been 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.
In this passage, Brother demonstrates an awareness of the changing of the seasons, noting how the petals of the magnolia flowers are a “rotting brown” color and how the weeds are starting to overrun the purple phlox flowers in the garden as the summer flowers start to fade away.
It is likely that Hurst set the story in the early fall so as to symbolically tie the dying flowers to Doodle’s death. Brother also mentions the scarlet ibis in this passage, another natural element that dies over the course of the story. The ibis more directly symbolizes Doodle, as the two are described as being “red” and both ultimately pass away unexpectedly in fierce storms.
Related Themes:
