Wednesday, March 20, 2013

As you read "The Scarlet Ibis," describe two or three things you can infer about its narrator as well as any conclusion you come to about him .

This question is fairly open ended, so the answer will be slightly different for different readers.  Different readers will read into the narrator a bit differently.  As long as you can somewhat explain why you listed the two or three things that you listed, you should be good to go.  


Two things that I infer about the narrator is that he likes nature, and he notices small details.  When reading the first paragraph, it is striking to me at all of the beautiful little descriptions that brother is able to give about a simple nature scene.  



The flower garden was strained with rotting brown magnolia petals and ironweeds grew rank amid the purple phlox. The five o'clocks by the chimney still marked time, but the oriole nest in the elm was untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle.



That passage is full of color and analogy.  It really paints a picture in a reader's mind.  Keep in mind that the narrator is a male.  It's not that men can't talk like that or notice things like that, it's just that a person doesn't hear it very often.  


I also can infer that the narrator is much older now than he was during the events of the story that he is narrating.  The second paragraph alerts readers to this fact.  



It's strange that all this is still so clear to me, now that summer has long since fled and time has had its way.



Lastly, based on the first two paragraphs, a reader can infer that the story brother is going to tell is not going to be a happy one.  The first paragraph talks about "graveyard flowers" and "names of our dead."  The second paragraph mentions a "bleeding tree."  For a narrator that notices such small details about nature, it's foreboding that he is choosing to focus on items dealing with death and pain.  

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