Character Analysis: My Brother Sam Is Dead

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Wars around the world have impacted life right now. The life now would’ve been very different if there wasn’t any wars. War will divide families, clash generations, and it will principle versus reality. In the book “My Brother Sam is Dead” all three of those things happened, especially division of family. In “My Brother Sam is Dead”, although both sides of war are shown, author's Collier and Collier ultimately argue that war is futile. Division of family happened a lot of times in war. In the book it happened twice to the Meeker family. First Sam leaves his family for the war and independence. His father tell him that war is not worth it and they get in a big arguement. “Sir, it’s worth dying to be free.” That made father shout, “Free? Free …show more content…

Principle versus reality is what someone wants but doesn’t get it. One example is Sam wanting freedom. He fought in the war for three years and never experienced victory or defeat because the reality is that you will die eventually. “He hit the ground on his belly and flopped over on his back. He wasn’t dead yet. He laid there shaking and thrashing about, his knees shaking up and down with flames on his shirt until another soldier came up and shot him again. Then he stopped jerking ( Collier and Collier 208). This next is about sam leaving home for war, and the reality for that is that all kids get older and don’t want to live with their parents. When he left tim had to do everything sam would do. The tavern would fall back a couple of times but they catch up. When father gets taken away they really need sam back. He doesn’t want to come back because he likes the excitement of war. “But this time I knew he was wrong. He was staying in the army because he wanted to stay in the army, not because of duty or anything else. He liked the excitement of it ( Collier and Collier 162). These are other examples in the book. Jerry Sanford, Ned, Mr. Meeker, and sam all died in this book. Expectations of death would be natural causes but the reality is you don’t know how you'll

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