Michael Lassell's How To Watch Your Brother Die

Love, as with all other things, brings pain and suffering. Suffering is an emotion individuals encounter everyday, some more than others. “How to Watch Your Brother Die”, Michael Lassell uses point of view, dialogue, and contrast of language to better exemplify the challenges of homosexuality in today’s society through the eyes of an orthodox straight man, and how the death of a homosexual brother has influenced the main character’s attitude towards his brother, his brother’s lover, and life itself.

Lassell uses second person to tell the story as if it is an incident, the reader is going to soon encounter, telling the reader how to react, guiding them each step of the way. With the use of second person the reader is able to connect to the main character in ways that might not have to deal with homosexuality specifically, but rather mimic

Anytime dialogue is used in this poem it is mainly positive. In the second to last paragraph of the poem, the lover and the brother engage in one last conversation before the brother leaves. The lover says to the brother “Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him after he told you. He did” (Lassell pr. 12 line 6). The dialogue acts as a key point in the brother’s forgiveness process. When the main character forgives himself he also reminded of another challenge that his brother had to face. His brother wasn’t accepted by him but he still had the love in his heart to forgive his brother. This shines a light on the change of attitude the main character had towards his brother. “I never thought I was good enough looking to deserve your brother” (Lassell pr. 4 line 5). The use of dialogue here lets the reader and main character understand the love that the lover had for the brother and how good of a man he must have been. This evidently changes the main character’s attitude towards the