My Brother Sam Is Dead Character Analysis

Causes of War

In the novel, My Brother Sam is Dead, by James and Christopher Collier, they teach that there are many other ways to solve conflict besides war. War is violent, disgusting, and gruesome and so many people die in war. Families separate in war because of how many people want to be in the thrill of the war and also how many innocent family members die in the midst of war. Lastly, war is worthless and it was caused by a disagreement over something little and the outcome of war is not worth the many lives, time, and money and there are other ways to solve conflict besides to fight. War causes so many negative outcomes on this world that it needs to be avoided at all costs.

According to Christopher and James Collier,”War turns men into beasts.” It is true because many people are willing to

die for something that they really want. In the the book, Sam was arguing with his dad and how war was worth everything, even his own life. His dad countered and he said that it is pointless but Sam just went to war anyways. In the Meeker family,from Tim’s point of view,war got his brother and his father and his brother killed from the Revolutionary War. Also, the beheading of Ned, the tragic death of Jerry Sanford, and the house the British burned were all examples of how gruesome war was to Tim. The deaths of people from don’t just happen from the fighting itself, but the side causes of war causes the death of innocent people like Mr. Meekers death. Tim knows how savage war could get because his own family was caught in the midst of it all. Since his family was caught in it, Sam was tempted to join war and was willing to leave his family for his own freedom.
According to the book, Colonel Read said,” So many men died, so many mothers wept, so many brothers and sisters died.” This statement is true and it happened to the Meeker family and Tim is enraged and very sad at the same time that his family was caught up and divided in the midst of war. Sam left home to fight and his dad died on a British prison ship because cattle thieves caught him trading cattles for the British. Tim feels what it is like to have missing family members at home and having to get used to it and having to live a harder life without them. Their business was harder to manage without the father and Sam helping around the tavern. For Mrs. Meeker, it was very hard for her to lose her own husband and having to take over the business without a spouse must be challenging and must be hard to get used to. Sam went to war in the first place because he thought that to win the independence from the British must be everything he’s got including his own life. Giving his own life for one little cause is probably worth anything big or anything at all.
In the novel, Mr.

Meeker was enraged at Sam and his ideas and he shouted,”Free? Free to do what, Sam? Free to mock your king? To shoot your neighbor? To make a mess of a thousand lives? Where have you gotten these ideas?” Sam is thinks that having independence is worth his everything but Mr Meeker thinks the opposite and Mr. Meeker has a point. They all want independence from England but to go against war against one of the strongest countries at the time to have a little tiny bit more freedom was a crazy idea. War is never going to be worth the outcome of anything that happens because there is always something to lose in war such as your family members, waste of time, and could even cost a loved one's life. Tim wasn’t on a side during the Revolutionary War because Sam was a Patriot and his father was just against war and Tim didn’t like the idea of war either but he wanted freedom. In the epilogue, Tim wonders if there was any other solution than to pay the price of war. The price of war is a great price and nobody wants to pay that price so the best thing to do is to reasonably work it out. The idea of war is crazy and war costs like nothing else in this world

ever.
War is very bad for this world because the price to pay is horrible and it needs to stop happening. War is violent and causes the death of many people. War separates and divides families apart to the point where the family can barely make a living without them. Finally, war and everything about war is worthless because it costs time, money and most importantly, family members. War and everything about war should be avoided so none of the negative outcomes of war will hurt anyone.