Read the excerpt from “the scarlet ibis.” there is within me (and with sadness i have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at times i was mean to doodle. one day i took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him how we all had believed he would die. it was covered with a film of paris green sprinkled to kill the rats, and screech owls had built a nest inside it. doodle studied the mahogany box for a long time, then said, “it’s not mine.” “it is,” i said. “and before i’ll you down from the loft, you’re going to have to touch it.” what symbol is described in this excerpt, and what does it represent?

"The Scarlet Ibis" is a short story written by novelist James Hurst that was first published in July 1960. It tells the story of the narrator named "Brother" and his young brother William Armstrong whose nickname is Doodle.

In the excerpt provided in the question, the symbol which is being described is a casket. As it says in one of the lines of the excerpt "...I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him how we all had believed he would die." After that sentence the narrator goes on to describe the state of the casket and Doodle's reaction towards it. The casket also represents death and how Doodle is terribly afraid of it, therefore why he does not want to touch the casket when his brother tells him to do it. Throughout all of the story line, the death of Doodle is represented by different moments or objects, like in the case of the casket.

b

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