40 Fun Facts About The Scarlet Ibis

In James Hurst's "The Scarlet Ibis", what formal name do the parents give the baby the narrator later nicknames Doodle?

William Armstrong is what the family calls the baby while he can only lie in bed. The narrator thinks it far too grand, a name that would only suit a gravestone.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what odd way of moving reminds the narrator of a doodlebug and earns his brother a nickname?

Crawling backward was all Doodle could manage at two, though the doctor had warned that even that strain could kill him. The narrator later says nobody expects much of someone with such a name.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what is Doodle born in that one of the household links to Jesus's nightgown?

A caul is a birth membrane that sometimes covers a newborn's head. She says such babies deserve special respect, because they may turn out to be saints.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", how does the narrator plan to kill his baby brother?

Smothering him with a pillow is the six-year-old's secret plan, a shocking start to a story about brotherly love. He drops it the day the baby proves he is alert.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", where does the narrator secretly teach Doodle to walk, a place so lovely it once made Doodle cry?

Old Woman Swamp is the only beauty the narrator knows, and the brothers dream of living there as grown men. Doodle first stands alone there after weeks of falling.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what does the narrator force a terrified Doodle to touch in the barn loft?

His own coffin had been ordered by Daddy when almost nobody expected the newborn to survive. Doodle calmly says it is not his, then touches it, screaming.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", which motive does the narrator admit drove him to teach Doodle to walk, making him cry?

Pride, not love, drove him: he was embarrassed to have a five-year-old brother who could not walk. Looking back, he sees that the same feeling gave Doodle his finest hour and then cost him his life.

Which war shadows "The Scarlet Ibis", with Château-Thierry named at home and Mama blessing a family whose son was lost?

World War I was in its final months in 1918, when the story's last events take place. Mama blesses at the table a family whose son Joe was lost at Belleau Wood.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what does one of the household say dead birds bring, especially red ones?

Bad luck is her warning from the kitchen door, and it comes true within hours, when Doodle dies in the storm that same afternoon.

The scarlet ibis, the tropical bird of James Hurst's short story, is a national bird of which Caribbean country?

Trinidad and Tobago splits the honor between two birds: the scarlet ibis stands for Trinidad and the cocrico for Tobago, and both appear on the national coat of arms.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", which condition makes the doctor warn that the strain of crawling could kill Doodle?

A weak heart leads the doctor to rule out even crawling, yet Doodle learns at two. From then on the family brings him into the living room, and he becomes one of them.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", on which occasion do the brothers reveal at breakfast that Doodle has learned to walk?

His sixth birthday was chosen after weeks of hints about a spectacular surprise. Doodle walks to his place at the table, and the family hugs both boys.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what does Daddy build so that the narrator can haul Doodle along wherever he goes?

A go-cart made the narrator his brother's unwilling driver, and he raced it around corners on two wheels to put Doodle off coming. It is retired to the barn once Doodle can walk.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", which crop does Daddy mourn when his fields wither and are then flattened in a single season?

Cotton was the family's living, and Daddy stands in the ruined field cursing the weather and politics until his sons start to giggle.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what strikes the farm after a long drought, uprooting trees and finishing off the crops?

A hurricane tears up trees and ruins what the drought had spared, yet Doodle and his brother shrug it off, sure that everything will turn out all right.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", which US president is the eccentric Miss Leedie said to be in love with, writing to him daily?

Woodrow Wilson gets a letter from her every day, the narrator claims. He mentions her to explain that Doodle's craziness was the gentle, dreamlike kind.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", who delivers Doodle and is the only person to believe the frail newborn will live?

Aunt Nicey is the story's voice of faith: she insists the baby is special, objects to his nickname, and gives thanks to God when he walks.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", where in the yard does the exhausted red bird perch before it tumbles dead at the family's feet?

The bleeding tree, a tree that oozes sap, is named in the story's opening sentence, so the bird frames everything that follows. By the time the narrator tells the tale, it is gone.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", Daddy reads that the bird lives in the tropics, from South America up to which US state?

Florida is the top of its range in the bird book, so Daddy decides that a storm must have blown the ibis off course to their farm.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what does Doodle use to carry the dead bird to its grave after Mama forbids touching it?

A piece of string looped around its neck lets Doodle obey his mother and still honor the bird. The family watches from the window, amused by the shovel twice his height.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", why does Mama forbid Doodle to touch the dead ibis?

It might carry disease, Mama says, voicing only fear where Doodle sees something beautiful. She calls the family back to the table while he works out another way.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", which dessert fails to tempt Doodle back to the table after the red bird dies in the yard?

Peach cobbler is Mama's promised treat, but Doodle has lost his appetite and comes back from the burial looking pale. It is one more sign that he is unwell.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", to which spot on the water does the narrator take Doodle for one last lesson before the storm?

Horsehead Landing is where the brothers trained on hot days, and where Doodle, tired and frightened, collapses in the mud on the last afternoon.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what does the narrator make an exhausted Doodle do against the tide as storm clouds gather?

Row the boat back, the narrator insists, after Doodle says he is too tired to swim. By the time they land, lightning is flashing and both boys know the training plan has failed.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", what does Doodle beg of his brother in the barn loft and again in the storm?

Not to leave him is Doodle's one great plea, made first during a cruel game and then in earnest. The second time, his brother runs on through the rain until the cries fade.

What turns the scarlet ibis, the bird of James Hurst's story, bright red after it starts life gray and brown?

Pigments in its food do the work: a heavy diet of red crustaceans supplies astaxanthin, a carotenoid, and the full color takes about two years to develop.

At which point in the year does "The Scarlet Ibis" open, in what its narrator calls the clove of seasons?

Summer turning to autumn is when the bird arrives and when Doodle dies, so the story opens where it will end. Clove here means a split, the gap between two seasons.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", which object by the kitchen door turns and carries the adult narrator back to memories of Doodle?

A grindstone now stands where the ibis once landed, beside a tidied garden and a gleaming white house. Its turning is what takes the narrator back in time.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", which pet bird belongs to the golden-robed boy in the favorite story Doodle makes up?

A peacock with a ten-foot tail is the star of Doodle's best tale, in a game the brothers call lying. Everyone in his stories has wings and flies wherever they like.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", how do the brothers plan to earn a living once they are grown and settled in their swamp?

Picking dog-tongue, a wild plant, would pay for a house built of whispering leaves. Doodle adds that he could marry Mama and his brother could marry Daddy.

Which coastal state, where author James Hurst was born on a farm by the sea, is the setting of "The Scarlet Ibis"?

North Carolina is never named in the story, but its swamps, pines and nearby sea match the stretch of coast where the author was born.

In "The Scarlet Ibis", the narrator jokes that the brothers' wild tales could get them sent to Dix Hill, a real what?

A psychiatric hospital stood on Dix Hill from 1856 until 2012, named for the mental health advocate Dorothea Dix. The joke shows how little room the boys' community left for imagination.

Which magazine first published "The Scarlet Ibis" in July 1960 and gave James Hurst one of its fiction awards?

The Atlantic Monthly gave it the Atlantic First award that year. It was his first story to reach a national magazine, after several in small literary reviews.

James Hurst wrote "The Scarlet Ibis" in his spare time while working for decades in New York in which field?

Banking paid the bills: he spent more than thirty years in the international department of Chase Manhattan Bank. None of his other stories found the same fame.

At which famous conservatory did "The Scarlet Ibis" author James Hurst study, hoping to make a career as a singer?

The Juilliard School in New York was followed by four years of further study in Rome, before he decided he lacked the talent. He said writing the story helped him come to terms with that failure.

What did James Hurst, author of "The Scarlet Ibis", study at college before abandoning it for music and then fiction?

Chemical engineering was his college course before three years in the army, after which he chose music instead. Fiction came last of all, written in his spare time.

"The Scarlet Ibis" is often classed in which literary genre, the one associated with Flannery O'Connor's fiction?

Southern Gothic stories pair the American South with macabre events and themes of madness, decay and despair. Hurst's story supplies a rotting garden, a frail child and a fatal storm.

From which narrative point of view does James Hurst tell "The Scarlet Ibis"?

First person lets the adult narrator confess motives the boy could never have put into words. Readers see Doodle only through the eyes of the brother who failed him.

Which device is at work in "The Scarlet Ibis" when the narrator says Doodle's formal name suits only a gravestone?

Foreshadowing runs through the story, from the empty nest and graveyard flowers of the opening paragraph to the doctor's warnings. Each hint points toward the death of Doodle.

Into which stage form was "The Scarlet Ibis" adapted by composer Stefan Weisman, premiering in New York in 2015?

An opera with a libretto by David Cote premiered at the Prototype festival in January 2015 and was later staged in Boston and Chicago.