How Does Hurst Present Prejudice In The Scarlet Ibis

In “The Scarlet Ibis”, by James Hurst, the author utilizes the symbol of the ibis to illustrate the prejudice that Doodle encounters from his family throughout the story. The ibis first appears when the narrator’s family witnesses the bird in the garden and a few moments later, it dies. After that, Doodle decides to bury it, as he “carried the bird around to the front yard and dug a hole in the flower garden...we were watching him through the front window, but he didn't know it” (98). In here, Doodle does this for the bird because he starts to feel connection for it, in a way that they are both out of the place and have similar characteristics. On the other hand, the parents have a lack of concern for the ibis and Doodle, so they could only watch his clumsy attempts at burying the bird and never help. Conversely, their indifference connects to how in the beginning, they expressed prejudice towards Doodle’s disability to the extent of not naming for 3 months after his birth and building a coffin for him, all because they expected him to die. Their actions cause Doodle to be conveyed as an outcast in the family, as if he was unwanted and rejected by them.
The simile signifies the bird’s fragility that is to similar to “a broken vase of red flowers” which leads to the ibis’s misfortunate death. The ibis didn’t fit in its new habitat, as it didn’t accept the bird and killed it instead. Likewise, Doodle experiences the same and receives the most inequity from his brother. As the narrator is a great conformist, he doesn’t accept Doodle’s individuality and forces him to undergo an intensive training program that will help him become ‘normal’ and be like everyone else in the