Alexander Darling

3 Belcher
Ecology’s Principles Applied to “The Scarlet Ibis”

“The Scarlet Ibis”, by James Hurst†, holds profound meaning regarding

modern human nature. It shows that for all of the, social, political, theological,

ideological, and overall cultural advancements of the human race, the rules of

evolution stay etched into our skin. The adjectives “modern” and “human” are only

masks used to cover up a greater meaning. The nature of life, the nature of ecology.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Hurst applies the common ecological principles of

competitive exclusion, symbiosis, and relationships built on sympathy as he writes

his story. These factors play into the narrator’s cruelty towards his brother, Doodle’s

attachment to the narrator, and the various acts of kindness throughout the story

along with Doodle’s compassion for the scarlet ibis, respectively.

To begin, competitive exclusion is a major part of “The Scarlet Ibis”.

Competitive exclusion is a theory which states that:

Two species that compete for the same resources cannot stably coexist.
One of the two competitors will always have [at the very least] an every
so slight advantage over the other that leads to the extinction of the
second competitor in the long run.1

In the case presented in “The Scarlet Ibis”, the two species would be the narrator

and his younger brother Doodle. The resource that both are trying to attain is

importance, which the narrator struggles to attain because of Doodle’s sociopolitical

effect on him, and which Doodle cannot gain because of the unattainable goals that

the narrator sets for him. The edge which the narrator has is not slight at all. It is, in

fact, enormous. He has the power to control Doodle, for Doodle is emotionally

reliant on him. If not for the narrator’s mental dominance over his brother, the

younger boy would not have killed himself in an effort to catch up to the narrator at
the end of the story. In fact, if Doodle hadn’t leaned so much on the narrator for

emotional support, he wouldn’t have been outside in the first place, because he

wouldn’t have been conditioning for his brother. The narrator says that he trained

Doodle during the summer with a tough regiment, during the last few weeks even

making the boy “swim until he turned blue and row until he couldn’t lift and oar,”†

(p. 195), yet Doodle still used his brother as a emotional crutch.

In fact, Doodle kept to the narrator throughout almost the entire story. Even

before he could walk, Doodle tried his best to be close to the narrator at all times,

“If I so much as picked up my cap, he’d start crying to go with me…”† (p. 190). This

accurately reflects symbiosis, a part of ecology normally found to happen between

species of very different strengths. In common principle, the weaker animal will

make itself an integral part of the stronger one’s life, feeding off of the more

powerful partner’s ecological system. This can be anything as harmless as the

Imperial Shrimp hitching a ride on a Sea Cucumber (commensalism) to the

murderous actions of the tapeworm (parasitism).2 What Doodle does is, in effect, an

attempt at commensalism. He tries to get attention from the narrator without any

intention to harm him. But this doesn’t work out well, because Doodle’s relationship

with the narrator causes him to build an emotional reliance. Like a drug addict,

Doodle becomes dependant on the narrator’s emotional supplement.

And to tie in with emotions, actions based off sympathy throughout the story

also show roots in ancient development. In comparison to symbiosis and

competitive exclusion, sympathy is a newer trait. According to Charles Darwin in his

book Descent of Man, sympathy is theorized to have occurred due to beings

realizing that if they help others, those same people will help them in return. This

concept of what goes around comes around is likely to be the root of sympathy, for
those who acted kindly received more help from others, and so reproduced more,

passing on the trait of sympathy down the hereditary line3 to the characters in “The

Scarlet Ibis”. During the beginning, the mother already feels a sympathetic

connection with Doodle when he is born all too frail and sickly. At the end, the

narrator’s sympathy for Doodle shows as he mourns the boy’s death. But the best

example of sympathy in this story is the scarlet ibis and Doodle. For an exotic,

unnamed reason, Doodle connects with the scarlet ibis soon after he sights it. He is

solemn in its presence, loses his appetite (something that doesn’t happen very

often among juvenile males), and goes to great lengths to bury the fallen animal:

“Doodle remained kneeling. “I’m going to bury him.”

Don’t you dare touch him,” Mama warned…
… He took out a piece of string from his pocket and, without touching the
ibis, looped one end around its neck… he carried the bird around to the
front yard and dug a hole… next to the petunia bed. His awkwardness at
digging the hole with a shovel whose handle was twice as long as he was
made us laugh. † (p. 196-197)

It is obvious that there exists a great amount of sympathy in the human race. And

though this trait was developed recently by the standards of the most ancient

survival methods, it is still a characteristic of primeval descent.

The eldest ties of biology’s history bind the characteristics of human nature

together, despite the advancements of thousands of years. The narrator’s

dominating and manipulative actions which eventually lead to Doodle’s demise

reflect competitive exclusion, Doodle’s attachment to his brother replicates

symbiosis, and sympathy between other forms of life is shown throughout the story,

mainly in the incident with the scarlet ibis. Though it isn’t known whether he meant

to or not, Hurst did a fine job in relating the fundamental, primordial elements of

ecology to modern humankinds’ actions in his short story “The Scarlet Ibis”.
 Works Cited

†. All quotations marked with page numbers come from the following source:
Hurst, James. “The Scarlet Ibis.” Literature: World Masterpieces. Fames Corcoran,
Jeannette Faurot, et al. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Prentice-Hall Inc., 1995. Pages
189-198.

1. “Competitive Exclusion Principle.” Bio-Medicine. 2003. 19 April 2009. <http://www.bio-

medicine.org/biology-definition/Competitive_exclusion_principle>.

2. Abbott, Dave. “Symbiosis.” Starship: Millennium Voyage. May 2000. 19 April 2009.
<http://www.ms-starship.com/sciencenew/symbiosis.htm>.

3. Darwin, Charles. “Descent of Man.” The Secular Web. 1871. 19 April 2009.
<http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_0
5.html>.