28 pages • 56 minutes read
The Scarlet Ibis
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Background
Authorial Context: James Hurst
Born in 1922, James Hurst and his two older siblings grew up on a farm near the seacoast in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Although the author maintained “The Scarlet Ibis” is not autobiographical, the story’s setting closely parallels the idyllic North Carolinian farm of Hurst’s youth. Many of the flowers and plant life featured in the story existed on Hurst’s childhood farm. Hurst also alludes to real places and events, such as locations of World War I battles and “Dix Hill,” a North Carolina psychiatric facility built in 1856 and since renamed Dorothea Dix Hospital. The hospital also served people with developmental disabilities and treated substance abuse.
After studying chemical engineering at North Carolina State College, now North Carolina State University, Hurst served in the army during World War II. Following his service, Hurst trained as an actor and singer at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. Hoping to become an opera singer, Hurst moved to Rome, where he lived for three or four years. After giving up on his operatic career, Hurst returned to New York. He took a position in the international department of Chase Manhattan Bank, where he worked for 34 years. Hurst wrote in his spare time, publishing a play and several short stories in literary magazines. “The Scarlet Ibis” is his most renowned story and won the “Atlantic First” award the year it was published. Hurst passed away in 2013. The North Carolina State University Fiction Contest is named in his honor and regularly awards prizes to Southern authors.
While most of Hurst’s writings are currently out of print, “The Scarlet Ibis” remains a mainstay in literary education, particularly at the high school and middle school levels. The story can be found in Characters in Conflict (1996), edited by Evler Mescal and in Brothers: 26 Stories of Love and Rivalry (2009), edited by Andrew Blauner and Frank McCourt. Additionally, recent critics have considered the story in relation to its ability to teach young students about disability and empathy, notably Patricia Dunn in Disabling Characters: Representations of Disability in Young Adult Literature (2015).
Ideological Context: Disability in the 1950s and 1960s
As Hurst’s short story is more than 60 years old, it is important to evaluate understanding of disability during the era in which Hurst wrote “The Scarlet Ibis.” Prior to the 1940s, social isolation was considered an effective recourse for those with disabilities. In the 1930s, emerging treatments—such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and “antipsychotic” medications—were incorporated in mental health care. In the 1940s, the neurosurgical procedure of lobotomies was popularized. However, big social changes occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, including a movement toward “deinstitutionalization” and the passing of civil laws to protect people with disabilities and mental health conditions. Subsequently, children with disabilities were afforded new treatments, access to education, and a place in the larger community.
Despite new hopes in the treatment of children with disabilities, limited support for families during the 1950s and 1960s did not aid in the successful integration of many of these children. Often, low-income families struggled to meet the needs of their children as they lacked financial means or education to take advantage of therapy and medical interventions. Hurst’s depiction of how society viewed children with disabilities develops the theme of Coming of Age: Pride and Social Acceptance. Doodle’s parents react to his condition by preparing a coffin, and they do not even name him until he is three months old. The narrator refers to Doodle as “invalid” and “nice crazy,” underscoring the era’s lack of understanding of those with disabilities. In fact, the narrator considers “smothering” his little brother out of fear that Doodle is “not all there” (49). Determined to have a socially accepted brother, the narrator ignores the doctor’s advice that Doodle “mustn’t get too excited, too hot, too cold, or too tired” (49). Similarly, the parents do not seem involved in all aspects of Doodle’s daily care, and the family regards him as a “burden.”
The short story reflects earlier forms of thinking about disabilities that are discouraged by the present-day medical community. Patricia Dunn argues in her study of representations of disability in literature that “The Scarlet Ibis” is an “ableist text,” or one that depicts individuals with disabilities either in stereotypical ways or as unable to have agency in their own lives. Often, mid-20th-century literary texts also tended to use characters with disabilities as the impetus for change for characters without disabilities. For Dunn, the death of Doodle “serves as a maturizing tool for a nondisabled character” (Dunn, Patricia A. “Disabling Assumptions.” The English Journal, vol. 103, no. 2, Nov. 2003, p. 129). Finally, while the story depicts Doodle as creative and imaginative, his physical capabilities are only brought forth through his brother’s training, stripping him of agency.
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