Question

It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow. However, one afternoon as I watched him, my head poked between the iron posts of the foot of the bed, he looked straight at me and grinned. I skipped through the rooms, down the echoing halls, shouting, "Mama, he smiled. He's all there! He's all there!" and he was.

–“The Scarlet Ibis,”
James Hurst

What does the imagery “I skipped through the rooms, down the echoing halls, shouting, ‘Mama, he smiled. He’s all there!’” show about the narrator?

Answer 1

The imagery of the narrator skipping through the rooms and echoing halls and shouting with excitement shows that the narrator feels a tremendous sense of joy and relief. The phrase "skipped through the rooms" creates a sense of lightness and jubilation, implying that the burden the narrator felt before has been lifted. The use of the word "echoing" suggests the vastness of the house and the reverberation of the narrator's voice, emphasizing the euphoria and the significance of the moment. The exclamation "Mama, he smiled. He's all there!" indicates the narrator's overwhelming happiness and the realization that their brother is not mentally impaired, as they had previously believed. Overall, the imagery portrays the narrator's deep emotional transformation from planning to kill their brother to embracing their brother's newfound ability, and demonstrates the narrator's love and acceptance.