The boys love to go to Old Women Swamp: "I would gather wild flowers, wild violets, honey suckle, yellow jasmine, and wire grass. We'd weave them into necklaces and crowns (Hurst 597)".
Doodle loved his brother more than anything, no matter how mean he was to Doodle: "Doodle was paralyzed, so I put him on my shoulder and carried him down the ladder, and even when we were outside in the bright sunshine, he clung to me and cried, "Don't leave me. Don't leave me" (Hurst 597)".
Doodle was all there, he understood him and the Ibis were alike: "He was pale and lingered just inside the screen door. "Did you get the Scarlet Ibis buried?" asked daddy. Doodle didn't speak, but nodded his head" (Hurst 603).
The narrator couldn't except having a invalid brother, but having a one who wasn't all there was even worse: "So I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow" (Hurst 595).
The narrator was ashamed of having a crippled brother: "they did not know I did it for my self; 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" (Hurst 599).
The narrator felt guilty and loved his brother more than I think he thought: "I began to weep, and the tear blurred vision before me looked very familiar" (Hurst 604). For a long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen Scarlet Ibis from the heresy of rain" (Hurst 604).
The theme of the story was balancing pride: "I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death" (Hurst 598).
The Scarlet Ibis and Doodle were both exotic, strange, graceful, and surviving in an environment not meant for them: "Even death did not mar its grace, for it lay on the earth like a broken vase of red flowers, and we stood around it, awed by its exotic beauty" (Hurst 602). "Doodle was the craziest brother a boy ever had. Of course, he wasn't a crazy crazy... but was a nice crazy, like someone you meet in your dreams" (Hurst 594).