to the first conflict, which is internal, it is apparently from the beginning that the narrator has mixed feelings towards his disabled younger brother. On the one hand, Doodle is a source of embarrassment and frustration; on the other hand, he is the only sibling the narrator has, and he finds himself wishing that their relationship could be different. There is a conflict between the brother he has and the brother he wants.

The second (external) conflict is the one that ultimately leads to Doodle's death. It is the conflict that sees the narrator reminisce about the cruelty that he showed his brother, going so far as to make him touch the casket that had been prematurely made for him. It is the same conflict that leads the narrator to leave Doodle behind in a storm with the ludicrous idea of testing his stamina. Given that Doodle dies in this incident, it is evident that the ongoing conflict between the two brothers led directly to Doodle's death.

One conflict that runs throughout the story deals with Brother's pride. Brother admits that he is ashamed of his brother because Doodle can't do what Brother thinks that all little brothers should be able to do.

They did not know that I did it for myself, that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother.

Brother admits a few paragraphs before the above quote that he didn't know it was pride that motivated him, nor did he understand that pride can be both helpful and hurtful. While Brother might not understand that his motivation is pride, he clearly wrestles with those feelings of disappointment. This motivates Brother to push Doodle quite hard in learning to walk, run, play, etc. This struggle between what Doodle can do and can't do is a conflict for both Brother and Doodle. Brother has to wrestle with how to teach Doodle, and Brother has to figure out how to be patient and motivating for both of them. Anybody who has ever coached understands this conflict.

For Doodle, there is an inner conflict within him that deals with never wanting to disappoint his older brother. Doodle is physically limited, but he appears to be intelligent and insightful. He knows that he has physical limitations, but he doesn't want his brother to see him for those limits. Another conflict within Doodle is his fear of being left alone. There are two times in the story that Doodle cries out "Don't leave me." He's terrified of being alone, and it's heartbreaking to watch Brother manipulate that fear.

“Then I’ll leave you here by yourself,” I threatened, and made as if I were going down.

Doodle was frightened of being left. “Don’t leave me, Brother,” he cried, and leaned toward the coffin.

The two different conflicts in the story "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst are:

a) Man against Man

b) Man against Himself

a) Concerning the first conflict, Man against Man, “The Scarlet Ibis” deals with the older brother and his conflict with his younger brother, Doodle. The conflict here is that Doodle is a bit of “a disappointment” to the family and certainly to the older brother. He does not like that his brother may not have the mental faculties and physical strength that he has, or that other less-challenged people have.

In addition, this older brother harbors resentment, somewhat, because Doodle, as espoused by the mother, may never be able to have boxing matches with him. Moreover, he may never be able to sit atop with him “in the top fork of the great pine behind the barn…”

Essentially the conflict is that this brother wants Doodle to be able to effortlessly do what the brothers of other people he knows can do. Doodle cannot; the older brother cannot really accept Doodle’s imitations. So this is the conflict of the older brother against Doodle.

b) Regarding Man against Himself, Doodle is in conflict with his limitations. He wants to be what the society around him calls ‘normal.’ Doodle wants to please his brother and enjoy life with him uninhibitedly, seizing the day with his brother, to borrow a famous saying. He wants to please his brother despite the mental and physical challenges he must battle with daily.

This is really evidenced toward the climax of “The Scarlet Ibis” when he cannot keep up with the older brother who is running away from him. This leads to his (Doodle’s) death and this is the ultimate price he pays in this battle against himself.

Furthermore, you can also say that a third conflict in this short story is the conflict both characters have - Man against Nature, or Man against his physical environment. Both are battling the deluge of rain that batters them as they struggle to get home.

The narrator first struggles as a child and older brother with the fact that the disabled Doodle is not the brother he would have liked to have had. As he puts it early in the story:

Doodle was born when I was seven and was, from the start, a disappointment. He seemed all head, with a tiny body that was red and shriveled like an old man's.

Doodle does not die as expected by his family, but he is disabled and at five has not learned to walk:

I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn't walk, so I set out to teach him.

The narrator struggles between wanting to help and care for his younger brother—doing such kind acts as teaching him to walk—and what he calls his streak of cruelty in wanting to treat this dependent and disappointing boy badly. This leads him to show Doodle his coffin and to leave Doodle behind in the rainstorm.

The narrator is also conflicted by the guilt he feels over Doodle's death: was it his fault or inevitable? While his narrative makes it seems likely that Doodle's disability might have killed him anyway, the narrator still struggles with feeling responsible for his brother's death.

The main conflict of "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst is Brother's inability to deal with Doodle's disabilities: his concern more for himself than Doodle.

When Doodle is born, Brother considers killing him because he is "not right."

He was born when I was six and was, from the outset, a disappointment.

Brother starts to pull Doodle around in a go-cart. Doodle greatly depends on his brother.

[Doodle] was a burden in many ways.

And Brother is often mean to his brother.

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.

They visit the loft and see the coffin that Brother's parents thought they would need for Doodle. Brother makes Doodle touch it and threatens to leave him alone if he does not. However, Brother also teaches his brother to walk, which amazes and delights the entire family. But while everyone hugs the two boys, Brother knows what motivated him, and he is ashamed—it was more pride than love: a major theme in the story.

Brother cries with unspoken shame, in the knowledge that his real motive was not love, but pride.

Brother is torn between doing for his brother and feeling like he is saddled with him. The central conflict in the story is found with Brother trying to live a "normal" life with an "exceptional" brother—in other words, he is torn between doing things to help his brother and doing things for his own benefit.

Brother never learns to fully appreciate Doodle for the special person he is. At the end of the story, Brother abandons his ailing brother in the middle of a thunderstorm. He finally stops, waiting for Doodle to appear—and when he does not show up, Brother finds his brother dead. Perhaps it is only now that he can appreciate his brother for who he was, apart from how Brother felt inconvenienced and embarrassed by him.

Childishly, Brother is more interested in himself than in others, even his brother who so needs him.

The main problem in the story is that Doodle is not strong enough to do what a normal brother can do.

Doodle’s weakness fills the plot of the story.  The narrator, Doodle’s brother, is never named.  Doodle is born sickly, and no one even thinks he is going to survive.  His brother says his name, William Armstrong, is only good for a coffin.  Yet despite the odds, Doodle struggles and grows.

Doodle’s brother is disappointed in having a younger sibling who is handicapped.  His desire for normalcy and companionship leads him to help Doodle become more normal.  When Doodle is five, he desperately wants to teach him to walk before his sixth birthday.

I helped Doodle up, and when he was standing alone I let them look. There wasn't a sound as Doodle walked slowly across the room and sat down at his place at the table. Then Mama began to cry and ran over to him, hugging him and kissing him.

Everyone is impressed and very sentimental.  It seems that with enough effort and help, Doodle can become slowly normal.  His brother feels the same way.  It was his persistence and desire to have a normal relationship with his younger brother that got Doodle to walk.

Brother wants more.  He wants a sibling who can run and play catch and do all of the things that brothers like to do together.

He didn't answer, so I placed my hand on his forehead and lifted his head. Limply, he fell backwards onto the earth. He had been bleeding from the mouth, and his neck and the front of his shirt were stained a brilliant red. 

Unfortunately, Doodle is not normal.  His brother pushes him a little too hard, and his attempts to make Doodle stronger are too much.  Doodle is too weak, and he ends up collapsing.  Like the scarlet ibis Doodle buried, he was too delicate for the situation in which he found himself.

In James Hurst's "The Scarlet Ibis," while there are both internal and external conflicts, the main conflicts are within the narrator.

• (Internal) At six years old, when his brother is born, the narrator tells the reader that from the first, Doodle was "a disappointment." When he learns that Doodle is possibly mentally and physically challenged, the narrator begins his plan to kill his brother; however, his plans are soon discarded after Doodle smiles at him through the posts of the bed.
• (External) "He was a burden in many ways." As his brother, the narrator realizes that he must take Doodle with him, so he shares "the only beauty I knew," Old Woman Swamp. When Doodle cries because of the beauty of nature there, the narrator is won over, and he takes Doodle daily to the swamp.
• (Internal) The narrator is cruel to Doodle. 

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....

One day the brother shows Doodle the small coffin made for him that is now covered with dust and a haunt of rats and a screech owl. When the brother threatens to leave Doodle in the bar, he cries out. "Don't leave me."

• (External) The brother tries to force Doodle to "be normal." Imposing his will upon his brother, the narrator coerces Doodle into learning to walk.
• (Internal) Once he has succeeded in getting Doodle to walk, the brother has a false sense of confidence, believing in his own "infallibility." After making Doodle row a boat back to shore, the brother runs from him in the rain. The strain on Doodle's heart as he tries to catch up is too great, and Doodle dies because of the brother's pride.

Man vs. Man - Brother vs Doodle  Brother wanted a healthy little brother to play with, not the handicapped Doodle.

Man vs. Himself - Brother struggles with himself, especially at the end when he is stricken with grief over his brother's death.

Man vs. Nature - The Scarlet Ibis dies and only Doodle cares enough to want to bury it. 

Man vs. Fate - Doodle is born handicapped, not by choice but by a stroke of fate.

Man vs. Fate - Mother and Father expect Doodle to die soon after birth, but he defies this fate and lives.

Man vs. Society - Doodle competes for his brother's attention.  He wants to be accepted by Brother, who represents the normal children in society, so therefore to be accepted, he will follow his older Brother, even to his death.  Doodle is powerless at the end, because the demands of society, or Brother, are too great, he expects him to be normal, and he is not.

The main source of conflict in James Hurst's short story "The Scarlet Ibis" concerns the narrator's struggle to accept and appreciate his disabled younger brother, Doodle. As a child, the narrator resents the fact that Doodle is disabled and cannot physically keep up with him. The narrator initially contemplates killing his younger brother but decides to leave Doodle alone after he sees him smile. The narrator tries his best to make Doodle "normal" and often pushes Doodle past his physical limits. Doodle eventually learns to walk and even exercises with his older brother at Old Woman Swamp. Sadly, the narrator never appreciates Doodle for his admirable character traits. Instead, he selfishly tries to form Doodle into his preconceived image of a healthy, competitive brother. Tragically, the narrator abandons his brother during a violent thunderstorm, and Doodle dies from physical exertion. It is only decades later that the narrator truly appreciates his exceptional brother, who died far too young.

Central to the conflicts in "The Scarlet Ibis" is the brother's/narrator's "knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love."

It would seem that the brother tells the story as an expiation for his guilt over the death of Doodle, and, perhaps, as a warning to others to not try to remake people. It is the hubris of the brother, his attempts to remake Doodle, that is central to his and Doodle's conflicts. For instance, when his frail brother becomes able to walk, the narrator admits that "Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother." Throughout his narrative, the brother admits that his pride, to which he was a "slave," "spoke...louder" to him than all the family members' voices. Indeed, this selfish pride is the driving force for his internal conflicts and many of the external conflicts.

From the beginning, the brother struggles with many internal conflicts. He is ashamed of Doodle: "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 with a pillow." This early conflict about Doodle's mental faculties is, fortunately, resolved when the baby Doodle smiles at the brother. However, the brother/narrator soon feels that Doodle "was a burden in many ways." So, he struggles with Doodle in external conflicts, trying to force him in different ways to become physically normal. This struggle causes Doodle to have inner conflicts as he tries to measure up to his big brother's expectations. Later, the brother causes an external conflict as he forces Doodle to "swim until he turned blue and row until he couldn't lift an oar." Until the end, the narrator/brother struggles internally with his selfishness and pride that eventually cause the death of Doodle.

It becomes apparent that Doodle's conflicts are brought about mainly because of his brother's demands upon him and his wish for his brother's love and approval. Thus, his conflicts arise from his struggles to make his body perform so that his brother will accept him as normal. Doodle's death is caused by his inner fears of not being loved and approved of and his anxiety about being left behind by his brother. His final struggle is both internal and external. Doodle struggles externally against the rain as he runs to catch his brother because of his fear of being left behind. Sadly, his weak heart fails him.

I believe that Doodle can be used to illustrate both internal and external conflicts.  Externally, Doodle struggles with regular every day activities and life itself.  He is frail, and all throughout his life, his family is more or less expecting him to die.  They have moments of joy.  For example, the family is ecstatic when they learn that Brother has taught Doodle to walk, but even Doodle himself knows that he isn't quite capable of keeping up with everybody else.  The simple act of moving from point A to B is a huge struggle for Doodle.  That's why he is so concerned with being left alone.  He says "Don't leave me" a total of four times in the story.  

Physically, Doodle struggles to keep up with everybody, and I believe he struggles with that internally too.  He wants to do everything that Brother does.  He desperately wants to keep up with his older brother, but he knows that he is limited.  When Doodle was learning to walk, it took weeks and weeks to accomplish a few steps.  There had to be moments when Doodle simply wanted to give up.  If that is too much of a hypothetical for an internal conflict, then Brother is a good character to use.  He openly admits that he struggles with his pride.  He's embarrassed that he has a brother that can't walk, so Brother decides that he will teach Doodle; however, he knows that his motivations are selfish.  There's also a sense that Brother struggles with feelings of guilt over how he treated Doodle.   

The internal conflict in the story comes from our narrator, Doodle's brother. He struggles with guilt over how he treated his disabled brother. He feels bad for playing mean jokes on him and for pushing him beyond his limits. The guilt especially plagues him when he recalls how unconditionally Doodle loved him no matter what he did to him. Doodle is grateful when his brother saves him from drowning, not even realizing that it was his brother who pushed him in.

The external conflict is best seen through what Doodle faces in the world. He is disabled and he must battle to be normal and he must battle to win over the heart of his older brother. Doodle pushes his body to the limit just to please his brother. He cares nothing for being "normal" only for being loved (which could also be an internal conflict). He deals with being outwardly rejected by the world, although he seems not to mind.

The setting in the story serves to facilitate the conflicts in the story. Doodle and his brother live in the country. Except for interacting with members of their family, they relate only to each other, and their conflicts are intensified by this. Old Woman Swamp becomes the scene in which their conflicts are developed in the narrative.

Brother loves Doodle, but he also resents him, an internal conflict. Dragging Doodle's "go-cart" into the swamp, Brother gives Doodle his first exposure to the beauty of nature. It forms a bond between them as they play in the swamp. It is also in the swamp, however, that Brother forces Doodle to stand, walk, run, row, box, and climb the rope vines around them, all because Brother is embarrassed by his little brother. Old Woman Swamp facilitates Brother's attempts to "teach" Doodle and resolve his own internal conflicts.

Doodle's conflict is also internal. He loves his brother and depends upon him. He lives in fear that his brother will leave him. Doodle struggles in the swamp to do all that his brother asks of him, even to the point of exhaustion. At the end of the story, both characters' conflicts are resolved in the swamp with Doodle's tragic death.

    In the James Hurst short story, "The Scarlet Ibis," Doodle and his family discover the identity and the ultimate migratory limits of the "great big red bird" that has died in their yard from a book about birds that the family has on hand.

... we stood around it, awed by its exotic beauty.
    "It's dead," Mama said.
    "What is it?" Doodle repeated.
    "Go bring me the big bird book," said Daddy. 

The book identifies it as a scarlet ibis and it's range of migration--"from South America to Florida. A storm must have brought it here." (Although not specifically identified, the setting of the story is probably coastal North Carolina, where author James Hurst grew up.) As an external conflict device, the book simply serves as proof as to why the bird has appeared and then fallen from the tree. It also explains why none of the family has seen one before and perhaps magnifies Aunt Nicey's prediction that "Dead birds is bad luck... 'specially red, dead birds!" In any case, Doodle has discovered a sad kinship with the bird that should never have made it so far north.