The main characters are Doodle and Brother. Ironically, neither one uses his actual name during the story. Doodle has a real name—William Armstrong—but his brother says it is the kind of name that “sounds good only on a tombstone.”
Brother is seven years older than Doodle. When the baby is born, he nicknames him Doodle because he crawls backwards. Doodle is a disappointment to him, and he is embarrassed by him.
There is inside me (and with sadness I have seen it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love. And at times I was mean to Doodle.
The narrator comments on how he showed his brother his coffin and made him cry. He also forced him to walk, and tried to teach him to swim when he was afraid. Brother’s efforts sometimes improved Doodle’s quality of life, but they also added to the danger in his weakened condition and eventually to his death.
No comments:
Post a Comment