3. I think at first the narrator’s treatment towards Doodle was totally cruel and malicious. It was not what you would have expected from two brothers. However, as the story progressed he became attached; he realized he would have to accept his brother. As he did he became in love. In the end when Doodle died, he cried. This symbolizes that he did in fact truly care about him, and that he felt bad for what he had done.
4. I think that Doodle is a perfectly normal character, he has no mental problems. He is “All there.” The only problems he has are his physical characteristics, such as his lack of strength. He feels love, compassion, and understanding so he is a normal, functional human being. I think his “lies” and what not help us to understand just how normal he is, he has a vivid imagination too!
5. I think the Ibis was the main event that led to serious foreshadowing. The red bird that dies should have symbolized that something bad was going to happen, it is very, very, very rare that a red bird from Africa travels thousands of miles to die in your backyard. This should have been the trigger to give Doodle a little space.
6. The third character, the setting, is what sets the mood for everything in the story. The fall/winter transition gives us the gloomy look outside, the secluded cotton farm gives us the feeling of boredom, and the swamp gives us all kinds of mixed feelings. I think he is trying to say that he gave the setting a lot of character like characteristics to contrast with how the characters reacted and acted in the story.
7. I think the message of the poem is that things we love have to be left the way they are, even though they are not perfect. Things will adapt to their environment, and sometimes is we try too hard to adapt for them it can end up with negative consequences. In the Scarlet Ibis, because Doodle wasn’t perfectly normal and adapted to this world, the narrator tried too hard to make him more adapted and normal. As in the poem, if you try to hard bad things can happen.
8. I believe that love and cruelty can exist at the same time, after all, cruelty is just a way to test how strong love really is. Without cruelty, we wouldn’t have anything to contract love to and without love, there would be nothing to contract cruelty to. When you are cruel to someone and especially when they forgive you, you are testing the strength of their love for you and how far they are willing to let you go before you break.
Prepositional Phrases:
1. Momma put the baby to bed, and he crawled out not yet ready to say good night.
2. I looked at the baby’s hands and wondered why he can be sucking on them without getting sick.
3. When he took his first steps uncontrollably, my brother laughed loudly.
4. My brother and I roamed the streets at night looking for children.
5. My brother and I found it difficult to keep up with the animal in the barn
