In My Brother Sam is Dead by the Collier brothers Tim is struggles between his loyalty to father or Sam. While reading about Tim's struggle, I have learned that war can divide and destroy individuals, families and communities. Authors often tell the story of people and their problems that they have to overcome. Holes is a story of how a boy has to overcome being in a new environment with no friends. Ajeemah and his son is a story of a father and his son being separated and sold into slavery. My Brother Sam is Dead by the Collier brothers, is a story of a boy named Tim overcoming the problems that war has caused him and is family. Lastly, it tells the story of how war can divide and destroy individuals, families and communities alike.
War can
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divide and destroy individuals. For example, when Mr. Heron (an officer in the Continental army) asks Tim to deliver a classified letter, Tim says yes because he wants to go on an adventure and score telling points to impress his brother Sam. But on the other hand his father doesn’t want him to go because he doesn’t believe in the war. This shows that Tim is struggling whether to be loyal to father or his brother Sam. Other individuals who have been torn apart by the war are Sam and his mother. Sam is struggling between being in the war but loving his family at the same time. His mother has been torn apart by the war by losing father which, causes her to loose hope and faith. Finally, father is torn by the war because he loves Sam but doesn’t like his decision of joining the Continental army. These are more reasons of how war doesn’t just happen on the battlefield but also within yourself. The Collier brothers also use a lot of repetition to show that War can divide and destroy individuals. For example, Tim is asked “what side are you on?” throughout the story by father, Sam, Betsy and himself numerous times. This tough question is not just asking if Tim is a Loyalist or Patriot but whether he would choose his father or his brother. War can also divide and destroy families. An example of this was when Tim steals the Brown Bess back from Sam since the continentals were hurting father. And Tim needed the Brown Bess to give to the soldiers. After Tim steals the gun Sam wakes up and runs after him to get it back because he needs it to protect himself in battle. After Sam catches up with Tim, Tim says “ I will shoot you if you come any closer”in order to protect his father. This shows that family members sometimes have to threaten each other to protect each other in times of war. It also shows that Tim is struggling to pick between father or Sam. There are other ways in which families are torn by war.
Tim often lies to his family to do something he wants, which often puts him in danger. Also, Tim disobeys his father’s advice in order to score telling points for Sam. Finally, Sam fights with father about the Patriot cause and what he believes in which often causes him to run away. These are some examples of how war can divide and destroy families.
The Collier brothers also use a full paragraph description to describe fathers experience in war to show that war can divide and destroy families. This paragraph is important because in this scene father is trying to convince Sam to drop out of the army. If this scene had never happened Sam would probably not visit home as much because this scene shows that father loves and cares about Sam, because he is trying to convince him to not put his life on the line by participating in the war. This shows that war can separate family members for long periods of time if they are not accepted back because of their choice.
And finally war can divide and destroy communities. For example, when the Continental soldiers come to the tavern to get the Brown Bess from father because they think he is a tory (they think this because Redding was known to be a tory town and they didn’t want tories to have guns). This scene shows that people are forced to pick and choose sides and turn against other community members in times of
war. In war communities are probably the most torn during war. Examples of this are community members steal from each other for greed and survival. Secondly, communities lose friends, family and neighbors in the war. Lastly, communities lie to each other to get they whatever they want. The Collier brothers emphasize how war can divide and destroy communities using the quote “In war the dead pay the debts for the living.” This means that we have to sacrifice people during war, so that the living will benefit from what the dead died for during war. This is important because it shows how war can divide and destroy communities.
In my opinion I believe the novel “My Brother Sam is Dead’ gives a very vivid account of historical events. The way soldiers are described, laying on the ground with blood on their shirt is a very realistic scene, I would say this novel is a very accurate story with fictional characters that gives you a very clear vision of what a family could have faced during that
My Brother Sam is Dead Author: by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier Category: Historical Fiction Summary: It starts out in the 1770's during the Revolution War and Samuel Meeker or Sam for short just interred the room of the tavern and he chimes in to everybody who is waiting to eat, he comes in saying where beating the Lobster Backs. His father, Eliphalet Meeker but called Life for short, starts arguing with son. After a while they calmed down and change the subject.
“Every war is everyone’s war”... war will bring out the worst in even the strongest and kindest people. The book tells about how ones greed for something can destroy everything for both people and animals leaving them broken beyond repair, leaving them only with questions… Will they ever see their family again? Will they ever experience what it’s like to
In the novel, Eldon and Frank Starlight, who are father and son, have a strained relationship. When Eldon accused Frank of an inability to understand war because he had never fought in one before, Frank said, “‘Not one of my own, leastways.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Means I’m still livin’ the one you never finished,’ (Wagamese 168).” He was explaining to his father that experiences don’t need to be physically experienced; they may also be mentally experienced. Frank knows a different type of war. It is the war where he grew up not knowing anything about his past, other than the fact that he is an Indigenous person. Whereas, Eldon’s war experience was a physical experience with the trauma and post traumatic stress of fighting in the Korean War. Inevitably, Frank ends up realizing that these stories though different, through empathy and an attempt to understand each other, they can bring people together. Wagamese’s strong connection to empathy is a grueling one. In an interview done with Shelagh Rogers, Wagamese spoke about not being there for his children. He said, "The lack of a significant parent is really, really a profound sorrow, a profound loss. It's a bruise that never really heals" (Rogers). With the difficult history of Wagamese’s family, he wanted to be able to pass on those meaningful lessons learned to his children. This is important because having learnt something like that from a parent or guardian is really meaningful to a child; it is a part of the parent and their past that will never leave and carries on through the child. The authors empathetic portrayal of his characters is direct result of the cultural influences of his
about the war and his lack of place in his old society. The war becomes
As you go through the journey of life you begin to realize the many obstacles you have to over come but what charts your growth is home you over come them. This quote resembles the story of My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier. Brothers Christopher and James have been writing historical fiction for young people since the early 1970s and have been known as masters of the genre. This book was named a Newbery Honor Book in 1975 and recently received a Phoenix Award. It has also taught an entertaining glimpse into a teenager's life in colonial times. Using real dates, people, and historical events it has a almost reality based story to grow and progress as a character of the American Revolution.
Wes (the author) has a family who wants to see him succeed. Although Wes didn’t know his father for long, the two memories he had of him and the endless stories his mother would share with him, helped guide him through the right path. His mother, made one of the biggest effects in Wes’s life when she decided to send him to military story, after seeing he was going down the wrong path. Perhaps, the other Wes’s mother tried her best to make sure he grew up to be a good person, but unfortunately Wes never listen. His brother, Tony was a drug dealer who wish he could go back in time and make the right decisions and he wanted Wes to be different than him. He didn’t want his brother to end up like him and even after he tried everything to keep Wes away from drugs, nothing worked and he gave up. As you can see, both families are very different, Wes (the author) has a family who wants him to have a bright future. Most importantly, a family who responds fast because right after his mother saw him falling down the wrong hill she didn’t hesitate to do something about it. The other Wes isn’t as lucky, as I believe since his mother already had so much pressure over keeping her job and her son Tony being involved in drugs. Same thing with Tony, he was so caught up in his own business that no one payed so much attention to
to deteriorate the human spirit. Starting out leaving you're home and family and ready to fight for you country, to ending up tired and scarred both physically and mentally beyond description. At the beginning of the novel nationalist feelings are present through pride of Paul and the rest of the boys. However at the end of the war it is apparent how pointless war really is.
When the war breaks out, this tranquil little town seems like the last place on earth that could produce a team of vicious, violent soldiers. Soon we see Jim thrown into a completely contrasting `world', full of violence and fighting, and the strong dissimilarity between his hometown and this new war-stricken country is emphasised. The fact that the original setting is so diversely opposite to that if the war setting, the harsh reality of the horror of war is demonstrated.
The author clearly shows how his childhood effected his adulthood, making in a living example of what he is writing about allowing the audience to more easily trust what he is writing about. Instead of using factually evidence from other dysfunctional family incidences, the author decides to make it more personal, by using his own life and comparing family ideas of the past to the present.
“War is brutish, inglorious and a terrible waste” (Sledge 315). E.B Sledge says this when describing war after two grueling campaigns in the Pacific. However, there is irony. Earlier in the war, Sledge is hungry for war, for action, for involvement. War intrigues him, then like most, he feels the reality of it. This is one of the main focuses in With the Old Breed. Sledge’s view of war changes as he continues through the war and beyond, along with his understanding of conflict and the realization of war being the solution.
The way the characters change emphasises the effect of war on the body and the mind. The things the boys have to do in the act of war and “the things men did or felt they had to do” 24 conflict with their morals burning the meaning of their morals with the duties they to carry out blindly. The war tears away the young’s innocence, “where a boy in a man 's body is forced to become an adult” before he is ready; with abrupt definiteness that no one could even comprehend and to fully recover from that is impossible. The story is riddled with death; all of the dead he’s has seen: Linda, Ted Lavender, Kiowa, Curt Lemon, the man he killed, and all the others without names.
This whole story is based around the horrors and actions which take place during war, and we therefore get involved in the scenery of war and become very familiar of what the characters must feel.
The war contributed to making the working class society believe that they were doing they’re part in helping “Big Brother” stop corruption and keeping the society in an orderly state. Big Brother manipulated the society by making up a war using previous pictures and images of a war that happened years ago. The war was also used to erase existing history that the government did not want the society to know. Furthermore, the war was used to keep the government and economy as the basis of power and maintain the balance of “Big Brother’s civilization”. The war mentioned in the film and book led to a conformed and controlled society.
...eard the gunfire, no longer in terror and fear, "Father. My Father he thought." Sarty tried to think good thoughts about his father thinking, "he was brave!" He served as a solder under Colonel Sartoris in the war! When the morning sun came up, he was finally on his own to be his own man, free to make his own individual decisions without worrying about what his father would do to him. It was from Sarty's dilemma of family loyalty and the desire to please his father that kept him from doing the right things. Was his father so bitter due to experiences he had during the Civil War ? Was it society's fault for what happened to his father? Was Abner just born with his us against them attitude? These are all questions that Faulkner leaves with us after reading the "Barn Burning." and is part of that fire in the back of our minds that we will never be able to put out..