Metaphors in ‘The Scarlet Ibis’: Mortality and Appreciation in Narratives

Comparing Grief and Suffering: A Deep Dive into Bierce’s Darkness and the Heartfelt Moments of ‘A Day’s Wait’ and ‘The Scarlet Ibis’

Even though the two stories are talking about horror and death and the other ones are more light-hearted, they are both so similar. Ambrose Bierce’s stories were very heavy; in The Moonlit Road and The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, they both ended in death, and that is what Bierce liked to write about. In both A Day’s Wait and Scarlet Ibis, there was death, but the death was different.

We will compare the characters, conflict, theme, and point of view between these four texts.

All of these texts included at least one loved one, which would make all the deaths or hard times very sentimental and heavier. In all of these books, there are books there are hard times. The main characters in each book were the ones that had a very hard time, and they were the ones that were having the problem and hard time. However, all these books were taken a different times, so their problems and hardships with the characters were very different.

Figurative Language in ‘The Scarlet Ibis’: Unraveling Themes of Mortality and Perspective Across Narratives

Their conflicts varied; for the two books by Ambrose Bierce, they were dark and a lot harsher than the books read in class. A Day’s Wait and Scarlet Ibis had conflicts that would more likely happen today; for Scarlet Ibis, the conflict was how Doodle’s brother tried to help him because he has a heart condition that makes him a little different, but it wasn’t working, so it got hard for doodles brother. That conflict is something that is more likely to happen in current times, whereas, in the moonlit road, the conflict was how Joel Hetman Jr. and his father try to find the murderer of his mother.

The theme of all these books kind of falls into the same category; they all learn that they can’t take anything for granted because it may all be gone very fast. They all learn this by death or simply just a very big bump in the road. You can really pick apart the theme from the point of view of the story. With Scarlet Ibis, you can tell the point of view is first-person sense. Doodle’s brother is talking to Doodle and getting fed up with him when he is trying to help. Whereas in A Day’s Wait, the point of view is third person limited sense Schatz’s father is talking about him.

In conclusion, books with different ideas and plot lines can end up having the same overall theme. Even though Ambrose Bierce’s books were so much different from the stories read in class, he kept his theme consistent. You should never take your life for granted, even when life gets hard, because you never know when it is your last day or a loved one.

References

1. Hurst, J. (1960). “The Scarlet Ibis.” In American Short Stories of the Twentieth Century. New York: Dover Publications.
2. Bierce, A. (1891). “The Moonlit Road.” In The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 2. San Francisco: Neale Publishing Company.
3. Bierce, A. (1890). “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” In Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. San Francisco: E.L.G. Steele.
4. Smith, L.T. (1998). “Understanding the American Gothic: Bierce’s Play with Darkness.” Journal of American Literary Studies, 23(2), 145-159.

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