Causes and Effects of Rebellion 

Often times there has been a situation that someone thought they could handle better, so they acted on those feelings and overthrew this system. This is Rebellion. The main character of The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst has a little brother with a life threatening heart condition that results in him being fragile. This prevents him from walking, this is the cause of his rebellion. Someone will rebel when they believe a situation would be better if they had control over the situation.

The narrator now set out to rebel and teach his brother to walk. “‘Oh, you can walk,’ I said, and I took him by the arms and stood him up. He collapsed onto the grass like a half-empty flour sack. It was as if he had no bones in his little legs”.

Going against all warnings, he decides he will teach him to walk because he can’t live with the fact he has a crippled brother. This is rebellion brought on by embarrassment caused by his little brother’s disabilities.

The text states,“They did not know that I did it for myself, that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother”. The consequence for his actions is his own personal guilt. Even though fundamentally what he did was a wonderful gift to Doodle, he knew he didn’t deserve the praise he was receiving because he acted for all the wrong reasons.

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This event passes, but the main character isn’t finished just yet.

Now that Doodle can walk, the main character will push Doodle to the max. The text states, “I began to believe in my own infallibility, and I prepared a terrific development program for him, unknown to Mama and Daddy, of course. I would teach him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight”. Completely disregarding the feelings of guilt and shame he felt prior, he now feels he can “fix” Doodle completely. This is rebellion brought on by his previous success. The text states, “He lay very awkwardly, with his head thrown far back, making his vermilion neck appear unusually long and slim”. He now sees the culmination of his efforts lying twisted and lifeless on the ground below him seeing how his rebellion has killed his brother. Now he is left with the thought that there is no one to blame but himself

The cause of rebellion is a dissatisfaction towards the current situation that the character believes could be solved if they were in control. In The Scarlet Ibis the main character believed he could rebel and teach Doodle things he physically couldn’t do. In the end Doodle’s death shows how his selfish rebellion was wrong and that he should have been satisfied with Doodle as a human being. Rebellion can be good if it’s based off human injustice, but when it’s based on a personal agenda it can turn messy fast.