Kendall Moffett-Sklaroff
Mrs. Morehouse
English Honors I
6 October 2008
Cruel Encouragement
In James Hurst’s short story, “The Scarlet Ibis”, good and bad pride reveals itself side by side through the tragic and challenging trials between Doodle and his older brother. For example, when Brother exclaims, “But all of us must have something or someone to be proud of, and Doodle had become mine,” he expresses his love and pride in helping and encouraging Doodle to advance in daily tasks and simple, necessary habits. This shows that Brother really loves Doodle, and he accepts his pride with the honor of owning up to his title as the older, responsible, loving sibling willing to help a struggling family member in need. This is important because it reveals the bond between two people and the dependency that makes the pride evident when something great, necessary or not, is achieved. However, the bad side of pride unveils itself in Brother when he confesses, “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.” This proves that Brother truly possesses a dirty, selfish, cruel side of pride that takes over the good pride in him. This is valuable because it shows that sometimes good pride manifests itself into bad pride because of self- desire, which has the potential to cause people to hurt someone or something unintentionally. Therefore, everything has a dark side that occasionally comes out and sadly has potential to ruin things forever.