Scarlet Ibis Study Guide Worksheet
1. What is the mood? What words cue you to this mood and what connotation do they have?
2. What is implied in the line "speaking softly the names of our dead?" Why is the narrator talking about a graveyard?
3. What is the difference between crazy crazy and nice crazy?
4. Why does the father have a coffin built for Doodle right after he was born?
5. Why does the name William Armstrong only sound good on a tombstone?
6. What does the narrator want in a brother?
7. What does it say about the narrator and why would he makes plans to smother his brother, Doodle, with a pillow?
8. What does the narrator mean by "he became one of us?"
9. Why do they refer to Doodle like he is one of their ancestors?
10. What is implied in the line "caul babies turn out to be like saints?"
11. What are the conflicts in the story and what type of conflicts are they?
12. Why does the narrator take Doodle to Old Woman Swamp?
13. "There is within me a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at times I was mean to Doodle..." What does this line mean?
14. Why does the narrator make Doodle touch the casket?
15. "Don't leave me." What is implied in Doodle's phrase and what is the tone?
16. What is the narrator's motivation in teaching Doodle to walk?
17. How is pride a terrible or wonderful thing? How does it bear both life and death?
18. What is an allusion and why does the author refer to the Resurrection?
19. What does the line mean "They did not know I did it for myself..."
20. What do Doodle's stories say about him? Why might he have more of an imagination?
21. What is the narrator's new plan concerning Doodle?
22. What does the line "no rain and the crops withered" foreshadow?
23. Why are the children frightened when their father puts his head down when looking at the damage to his land?
24. What does the line mean "Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school?" What does this say about Doodle and the narrator?
25. Why is Doodle so shocked by the Ibis dying? How might Doodle look like an Ibis?
26. What is significant about Doodle wanted to bury the bird but his mother telling him no because he might have a “disease?”
27. How does the storm represent the crisis of the story, the turning point?
28. Why does the narrator feel "that streak of cruelty within me awaken?"
29. What happens to Doodle? Why did the narrator stop running to then look back for Doodle?
Post Reading: Theme:
What is the theme of the Scarlet Ibis?
What do you think of the story? How do you try to conform to other's expectations? How do you try to make others conform to society's expectations?
How was Doodle saintly and how did this characteristic eventually cause his downfall?
How did love and cruelty live within the narrator? Do you think that love and cruelty can exist at the same time?
What does this story show about human nature? How is all of literature a discussion of human nature?