The narrator, six years old at the time of Doodle’s birth, has pinned his hopes on a brother who will be a playmate and companion in his adventures. He cannot conceive of anything less than the brother he envisions—and when presented with Doodle, whom he sees as a poor substitute, he contemplates murder. He is inflexible; he prefers no brother to one that doesn’t meet his expectations, and he spends the next few years trying to dissociate himself from his sibling. When this fails, he attempts against all odds to mold Doodle into something closer to the brother he hoped for. Blinded by the vision of who Doodle could be, the narrator pushes his brother too hard. In the end, he unintentionally brings about the death he contemplated at the beginning of the story; he trades a brother who doesn’t meet his expectations for no brother at all.

Doodle’s parents, though better intentioned, also burden their son with their expectations from the moment he is born. They are so certain he won’t live that they have a coffin built for him and don’t even bother to name him for the first three months of his life. Eventually they christen him “William Armstrong,” which the narrator reflects is “like tying a big tail on a small kite”—he thinks it is a name that “sounds good only on a tombstone.” Little by little, Doodle casts off his family’s and the doctor’s expectations; the coffin they built for him gathers dust in the attic next to the go-cart he once relied on to move. Yet even as Doodle proves himself much stronger than anyone anticipated, his mother continues to saddle him with a long list of “dos and don’ts” that involve avoiding heat, cold, and excitement.

Alone among the characters in the story, Doodle has no expectations of himself or of anyone. He develops his own personality, which the other characters, blinded by their own expectations, often fail to acknowledge. He spins fantastic stories and displays unguarded love and admiration for all living things he encounters, including the beautiful scarlet ibis that dies in his backyard. When his brother reminds him that he will be different from his peers at school if he doesn’t improve, Doodle asks, “Does it matter?” Doodle is a model of acceptance and compassion, yet he dies because the people around him fail to accept him for who he is.