east, tipping over the oaks in the yard and splitting the limbs of the elm trees." 

It was in the "clove of seasons," as the narrator describes it, that the scarlet ibis lands in the bleeding tree. It was a time of transition between summer and fall. 

"At that moment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were uncoordinated, and amid much flapping and a spray of flying feathers, it tumbled down, bumping through the limbs of the bleeding tree and landing at our feet with a thud. Its long, graceful neck jerked twice into an S, then straightened out, and the bird was still. A white veil came over the eyes and the long white beak unhinged. Its legs were crossed and its clawlike feet were delicately curved at rest. Even death did not mar its grace, for it lay on the earth like a broken vase of red flowers, and we stood around it, awed by its exotic beauty." 

The dying bird foreshadows Doodle's death. There are many similarities between the bird and Doodle. The bird is uncoordinated and falls. It has a white veil come over its eyes, like the caul that Doodle was born in. And it is beautiful even in death. Readers will remember that the narrator began the story with the description of the clove of seasons and the scarlet ibis landing in the bleeding tree. The narrator says that he remembers Doodle, which prompts readers to infer that something has happened to Doodle. 

Finally, the thunderstorm that descends prior to Doodle's death is an example of foreshadowing. 

"After we had drifted a long way, I put the oars in place and made Doodle row back against the tide. Black clouds began to gather in the southwest, and he kept watching them, trying to pull the oars a little faster. When we reached Horsehead Landing, lightning was playing across half the sky and thunder roared out, hiding even the sound of the sea. The sun disappeared and darkness descended, almost like night. Flocks of marsh crows flew by, heading inland to their roosting trees; and two egrets, squawking, arose from the oyster-rock shallows and careened away." 

The description of the ominous weather foreshadows an ominous event. The sun disappears and is replaced with blackness. The thunder is so loud it drowns out the sound of the sea. It is a picture of danger, and the reader is drawn into the action of the boys trying to escape the impending storm. Doodle is already worn out and exhausted so that fact has also foreshadowed a tragic outcome.

Hurst uses setting and diction to create the mood that is reflective, (the story is told as a flashback) solemn, and forlorn.  

There are numerous examples of foreshadowing in James Hurst's short story, "The Scarlet Ibis." The appearance of the ibis settling in the bleeding tree is one of the most obvious. The fact that it is a scarlet-colored bird (scarlet being the color of blood) is another. In fact, the color red is repeated often in the story. Others include:

• The mention of the blooming "graveyard flowers... speaking softly the names of our dead."
• The continued mention and presence of Doodle's coffin.
• The narrator claims that Doodle's real name, William Armstrong, "sounds good only on a tombstone."
• References to the dead on the battlefields of World War I.
• Aunt Nicey's claim that "Dead birds is bad luck... specially red dead birds."
• Black clouds gathered before the storm.

Foreshadowing is a literary technique that provides hints about what will happen later in the story. Since this is a tragic tale of two brothers, much of the foreshadowing hints of the tragedy that will come, creating a tense and dark mood. Consider how the following examples point to the eventual death of Doodle:

1. "Summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born..." If summer is over but autumn hasn't started, what season is it? This logically doesn't make sense—it's in a strange limbo period, just like Doodle's life.
2. "The last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton field and through every room of our house, speaking softly the names of our dead." Graveyards and death imply from the first paragraph that this will be a story of "our dead."
3. "Everybody thought he was going to die...But he didn’t die, andwhen he was three months old, Mama and Daddy decided theymight as well name him." The fact that Doodle's health is so precarious that his own parents don't give him a name for three entire months foreshadows the further health problems he will suffer.
4. "They named him William Armstrong...Such a name sounds good only on a tombstone." And, in fact, they will need a tombstone for this young child before the story's conclusion.
5. "But Mama, crying, told me that even if William Armstrong lived, he would never do these things with me." Again, the fact that the child's own mother has little hope that he will live and almost none about his quality of life if he does manage to survive foreshadows that Doodle has an almost impossible path ahead of him.
6. "I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow." It's no accident that the narrator envisions killing his brother when they are younger—and he is at least partially to blame for his brother's death in the end.
7. "The doctor said that with his weak heart this strain would probably kill him, but it didn’t." This foreshadows the eventual way that Doodle does die from overexertion.
8. "He was a burden in many ways." In the end, the narrator finds that waiting for Doodle is also a burden, and he leaves him in the storm.
9. "I put him on my shoulder and carried him down the ladder, and even when we were outside in the bright sunshine, he clung to me, crying, 'Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.'" These are almost exactly the words that Doodle uses at the end of the story, foreshadowing that the narrator will eventually abandon his brother in a moment of childish spite.
10. "Black clouds began to gather in the southwest, and he kept watching them, trying to pull the oars a little faster. When we reached Horsehead Landing, lightning was playing across half the sky and thunder roared out, hiding even the sound of the sea. The sun disappeared and darkness descended, almost like night." The weather becomes dangerous and dark, foreshadowing the impending death of Doodle.

There are also a few examples of irony in the story:

1. Doodle's father hires a man to build a coffin for him when he is born; yet Doodle goes on living.
2. Doodle learns to walk, even though his brother (and teacher) believes the feat is "hopeless."
3. When the narrator and Doodle reveal their secret, their aunt gets so excited that she hurts the narrator's big toe, and he comments that he thought he was "crippled for life." This is verbal irony, considering his brother's struggles to walk, which Doodle has proven capable of overcoming.
4. The very presence of the scarlet ibis in these surroundings is ironic; it doesn't belong there, and then it dies because it cannot adjust to its environment. This is much like Doodle.
5. The narrator doesn't take an opportunity to learn from the scarlet ibis and apply it to his treatment of Doodle, and his younger brother thus dies.

Foreshadowing is a literary technique in which the author provides hints of future events in the plot.  In James Hurst's short story, the Scarlet Ibis itself can be considered an example of foreshadowing.

Consider this unique bird: it is not native to the setting in which the story takes place, so therefore it is rather odd that this bird has ended up where they are, falling at their feet.  The ibis does not fit in, is out of place--just like Doodle is in his world.  If you pay attention to the description of the bird, it is very similar to Doodle's character--in other words, the ibis is a symbol of Doodle.  If we then follow what happens to the symbol, we can get a glimpse of what might happen in the story later on.

At the end of the story, Doodle dies in much the same way as the bird dies; hence, the death of the ibis is an example of foreshadowing.

I included a link to some other examples of foreshadowing if you want to take a look as well.

Foreshadowing is a prominent feature of James Hurst's short story "The Scarlet Ibis." From the very beginning death seems to pervade the story of two brothers growing up in coastal North Carolina in the first part of the 20th century. In the opening paragraph Hurst uses words symbolic of death such as "bleeding," "rotting," "empty," and "graveyard." Along with this imagery there are three specific places where Hurst foreshadows the eventual death of Doodle. 

Early in the story Doodle's brother, who is never named, takes Doodle up to the loft of the barn to show him the coffin which was built for Doodle when the boy was still an infant and the family believed he would die. While Doodle protests that it was not meant for him, the brother taunts him, urging him to touch the coffin, and threatening to run away if Doodle doesn't touch it. The scene foreshadows the brother later running away from Doodle in the rainstorm because Doodle can't accomplish the training regiment the brother has devised for him.

More foreshadowing of Doodle's death occurs in the stories which Doodle tells. In one story the boy Peter is enveloped in the wings of his pet peacock. The imagery in the boy's story is full of death references. Hurst writes,

When Peter was ready to go to sleep, the peacock spread his magnificent tail, enfolding the boy gently like a closing go-to-sleep flower, burying him in the glorious iridescent, rustling vortex.

Foreshadowing casts a sense of gloom and unease over this short story. For example, the words in the first sentence, "dead" and "bleeding," establish a mood of foreboding. All is not simply beautiful and idyllic in this natural setting.

Images of blood and dying repeat in the second paragraph, and again are connected to nature. For instance, the song of the oriole seems to "die" in the trees. By the time we get to the narrator's memories of Doodle, we are not expecting a happy story. The memories themselves are associated with a grindstone, not a pleasant image.

Our sense of foreshadowing, and hence foreboding, becomes directly tied to sweet Doodle and the scarlet ibis. For example, although the father describes the scarlet ibis as looking tired and sick, Doodle is mesmerized by the bird and identifies with it.

By the time the narrator finds the dead Doodle at the end of the story, we are prepared for this unhappy ending. It is not surprising either that Doodle looks likes the ibis. Doodle is stained scarlet with blood and his legs, which "bent sharply at the knees, had never before seemed so fragile, so thin." This story works through anticipation (and dread) rather than surprise.

In “The Scarlet Ibis,” James Hurst describes the oncoming storm in vivid detail. The storm symbolizes the emotional storm that is going on inside the narrator and foreshadows Doodle’s death. Let’s look at this in more detail.

Notice the details the author uses to describe the storm. You might select the black clouds and how the lightning plays across the sky. Think, too, about the sound the thunder makes and how the birds fly away quickly in the path of the approaching storm.

The author describes the rain as roaring, and then details the sights and sounds of a tree exploding after it is hit by lightning. This is a truly terrifying scene, and the boys are clearly losing their race with the storm.

The narrator is also losing his fight against his anger and frustration: the storm that is inside of him. He gives in to his cruelty and leaves Doodle behind in the midst of the storm. Doodle, already exhausted and now terrified as well, sits down beneath a bush, trying to get out of the downpour. His weak heart, however, cannot take the strain, and the boy dies right where he sits.

When we think of the setting, we need to remember that the climax of this unforgettable short story occurs in 1918, the year that World War I ended. This is very important for a number of reasons. Chiefly, Hurst seems to be drawing our attention as to how the war raging in Europe between "brothers" is related to the external conflict occurring between Doodle and his brother. As the war impinges more and more upon the reality of Doodle and his brother, so the narrator's desire to shape and form Doodle into somebody that he is not intensifies and reaches the horrific climax we are presented with at the end of the story. Consider how the war comes to bear on them more and more:

And during that summer, strange names were heard through the house: Chateau-Thierry, Amiens, Soissons, and in her blessing at the supper table, Mama once said, "And bless the Pearsons, whose boy Joe was lost in Belleau Wood."

Clearly even in their location in the States war is reaching and changing the lives of Doodle and his brother.

Thus, these details of setting create a morose, depressing mood that reflects the impact of the war on all aspects of society and the lives of Doodle and the narrator. This in turn foreshadows the conflict between the narrator and Doodle as the narrator struggles and pressurises Doodle to become somebody that he is unable to be, and his ultimate death.

There are many examples of foreshadowing in "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst. One example is the changing of what Doodle was called. His given name was William Armstrong; however, Brother (the narrator) renames him Doodle based on the way he appeared when he learned to crawl, "Crawling backward made him look like a doodle-bug..."(2). With this new name came less expectation: "because nobody expects much from someone called Doodle," foreshadowing the upcoming events.

Another example of foreshadowing is Doodle's request that Brother not leave him alone in the barn loft the day he is forced to touch his casket. Brother admits that this is a mean thing to do to his little brother, "and at times I was mean to Doodle," (3), and it foreshadows his behavior later in the story when Doodle is left behind in the storm. "When the deafening peal of thunder had died, and in the moment before the rain arrived, I hear Doodle, who had fallen behind cry out, "Brother, Brother, don't leave me! Don't leave me!" (9).

An additional example of foreshadowing includes Brother's statement about pride being "a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death," (4). This quote speaks to the fact that Brother only taught Doodle to walk because of his own pride. He was embarrassed by Doodle's inability to do things "normal" boys his age could do, so he set out to teach him. However, he pushed him too far in his attempt, which led to Doodle's untimely demise.

Furthermore, there are foreshadowing hints in the events that take place after Doodle learns to walk. The ibis' death is a strong clue because the ibis symbolizes Doodle. They are both weak, pushed beyond their limits, rare and beautiful. The ibis dies in a pool of red (feathers) under the bleeding tree, while Doodle dies in a pool of red (blood) under the red nightshade bush. Even their positions at death were similar: "Its long graceful neck jerked twice into an S, then straightened out, and the bird was still...Its legs were crossed and its clawlike feet were delicately curved at rest," (7) describes the ibis' position. Like the bird, Doodle "lay very awkwardly, with his head thrown far back, making his vermillion neck appear unusually long and slim. His little legs, bent sharply at the knees, had never before seemed so fragile, so thin," (9). Even Aunt Nicey's superstitious remark about dead birds, "Specially red dead birds," (8) being bad luck foreshadow an unhappy ending. 

Lastly, Doodle's health worsens progressively throughout the process of his training: "Doodle suffered from one bad cold after another," (5). As Brother continues to push Doodle through the paces, "his face turned red and his eyes became glazed," (6), and eventually,..."Doodle began to look feverish...At night he didn't sleep well, and sometimes he had nightmares..." (7).

All of these examples point to the sad, preventable, yet eventual death of young Doodle.