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How do sensory details combine effectively to create a certain atmosphere or mood in "The Scarlet Ibis"?

In "The Scarlet Ibis," author James Hurst appeals to the senses in order to create a foreboding and tension-filled mood. The first line of the story reads, "It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree." Immediately, description and contextual clues appeal to the senses—for instance, a footnote says that the bleeding tree is native to the South, so the reader can apply that summers in the South are sticky and humid. But that summer heat is described as giving way to cooler autumn, creating a unique sensation of hot and cold. Hurst goes on to name multiple types of flowers such as magnolia and phlox, and says that "their smell drifted across the cotton field" (page 1). The reader can feel the heat, smell the flowers, and see the cotton field that surrounds the narrator's house. 


As the story progresses, these beautiful descriptors become rather oppressive and ominous. The smell of the flowers becomes sickly sweet in the spring, and by the next summer all is "calm" and the family remarks that a storm is imminent (page 4, page 8-9). When Doodle's family hears "a strange croaking noise" in the yard, Hurst appeals to our sense of hearing (page 9). When the bizarre bird dies at the foot of the bleeding tree, and Doodle devotes a great deal of strength to burying it, the foreboding and tension-filled mood is increased. The ibis is dead, and Doodle looks pale from exertion (page 10). Doodle's lack of strength, coupled with the nightmares and fevers described on page 8, make the reader worry about him, for we know that those are signs of sickness. 


The final pages of the story appeal not only to the reader's senses, but also to their emotions. The sight and feel of the sun that "still burned fiercely" gives way to the "black clouds," "lightning...[and] thunder" that signal a storm (page 11). Finally, "the sun disappeared and darkness descended, almost like night," and the reader can imagine the terror of the boys, the electricity in the hot air, and the imminent rain (page 11). When Doodle dies beneath a tree, the reader shares in his brother's anguish, as he "screamed above the pounding storm" and wept over his little brother's body (page 12). Hurst's appeals to the senses allow the reader to be more involved in the story, fully absorbed in the stormy atmosphere and somber mood of "The Scarlet Ibis."

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