The past few weeks I have been reading the book called, My brother Sam is Dead. I really enjoyed reading this book and I really recommend it to those who like a good historical fiction book. This book was written by Christopher and James Lincoln Collier, and the book was taken place in 1974. Though the title may give you an idea that someone’s brother named Sam is dead, you have to keep reading to find out how they created the whole plot, and how Sam dies. The story starts off when Tim Meeker’s older brother Sam Meeker returns home from college. Sam is not on the same side as his father, Sam is a patriot while his father is a loyalist, Sam’s father does not know of this, but Sam and his father do always get into arguments which makes Tim feel …show more content…
very uncomfortable. One day while the two boys are outside doing some of their daily chores that they are given, Sam tells Tim that he is planning to steal his father's gun and run off to fight. Tim knows that Sam is not making a good decision but he can not really do anything about it as the younger one. Though Sam’s father does not believe in Sam’s beliefs he still really wants Sam to stay at home.
One day Tim wakes up to his brother, Sam and his father arguing over the gun, because Sam was caught trying to steal it. Sam later does get away with the gun. Father later died because of a ship disease, on the British boat, and Sam is still in war, Mother was looking forward to Sam coming home to help out with Tim and all of the manly work around the house, but she is later disappointed because Sam said no. Tim and Mother are stuck now running the cattle and a business, by themselves. Later in the book thieves were stealing their cattle and Sam and Tim run to see what is going on, the thieves were actually to trick Sam, Sam ran to get the cattle back, but the thieves turned Sam in. Tim is later trying to free Sam, but Sam ends up being shot by his own military, though he did not do it. One location they were at sometimes was the tavern, which was where town meeting happened, it was their grocery store, restaurant and a hang out place. The Meeker’s are the owners of the tavern which was hard to take care of after Sam’s father passed. Many people’s cattle was being stolen, not just the Meeker’s, this is because there was a lack of food
supply.
Chapter 10-14 in My Brother Sam is Dead describes the war’s savage nature and the hardships the Meeker family endures due to the wicked acts of man-kind. In chapter 10, Tim describes the woes of life without Father. Not long after British troops come to Redding. Consequently, a bloodbath between the painfully small Rebel militia and British troops. In chapter 11, the Continentals Army comes to Redding. Afterwards, Tim finds Sam with his regiment. Tim, Sam, and Mother visit and Sam refuses to come home after his enlistment is done. In chapter 12, the Meekers find out Father died on a British prison ship. The Continental Army sets up camp in Redding for the winter. A few months later, Sam is taken in for being a cattle thief after being framed
The two brothers began their travels and go to many places. They woke up in a different town and Joey was asking Josh if they had eaten breakfast. Without a quick response Josh soon got up and so did Joey and a walked a few miles to eat breakfast. They traveled long distances from week to week usually in a farmer’s truck. They often got rides from kind farmers who were willing or did not mind giving them a ride.
Tim’s father was being threatened by a man on the patriots side that wanted all of the Torie’s weapons. Sam had the weapon, but those men did not believe that, so the man slapped the flat side of his sword across fathers face. Tim went out and ran to the place where Sam’s sword would have been and got it. Sam was asleep when this happened and eventually tracked him down and took it back while his father was fine and they left him. (p.49-60) Tim was brave and smart, he showed both of these when he tricked men into thinking that they would be caught.The cattle thieves were tricked into thinking that an escort was coming soon because Tim made it sound like he thought that they were the escort.(p.123-126)
When Sam goes out late to leave the camp he was at during the war, he goes home to talk to his family and then he hears sounds outside and he finds patriot soldiers trying to steal his family's cattle and Sam tries to stop them. later when he returns to his camp he is accused for leaving the camp and for stealing property, and general Putnam decides to execute him and he dies. When Tim finds out he is very devastated.
The Bragg family grew up with virtually nothing. The father left the family a number of times, offering no financial assistance and stealing whatever he could before he left. When he was there, he was usually drunk and physically abusive to the mother. He rarely went after the children, but when he did the mother was always there to offer protection. Mr. Bragg's mother's life consisted of working herself to exhaustion and using whatever money she had on the children.
Milagro is a small agricultural town located in the hot arid state of New Mexico. Joe Mondragon, a man of his mid 30's, provided for his wife and two kids. He was a farmer, but a farmer with no fields. During the 1935 Interstate Water Compact, much of the water was transferred to big-time farmer's fields, like Ladd Devine. This would not have been a problem except for the fact that Joe's field was located on the west side of Milagro and all of the water flowed to the southeast side. All of the people of Milagro were unhappy about this change, but no one would say or do anything that would oppose the Devines. One day, Joe had had enough and tapped into the water supply. He knew that watering his father's field would cause problems, but he didn't care. Day after day Joe worked in his fields, preparing them for harvest. People from all the town gathered each day to watch Joe work. While Joe worked on his fields, the Devines worked on a plan to get rid of him. They did not like the idea that Joe Mondragon, a simple farmer, had not conformed to their ways. The Devines involved several various people in order to get rid of Joe, but all of these people could not stop Joe from obeying his morals. Bernabe Montoya, the Milagro town sheriff, and Sheriff Kyril Montana, a government officer, were assigned the duty of arresting Joe. They worked hard and diligently to arrest him, but time after time, they failed.
During the time period of the Revolutionary War, over 4,000 people had lost their lives during the frenzy of the war. The authors of the book, My Brother Sam is Dead, states that the death of so many people could have been avoided. Along with their statement, they also hint at the opposition to war through multiple events in the book. They show how the people of Redding were affected throughout the course of the book, in both positive and negative outputs. The authors of the book present both opposing sides of the Revolutionary War, the Loyalists and the Patriots. What the authors don’t do is support one side, but rather support the dissent towards war itself.
Brother, I’m Dying, is Edwidge Danticat’s nonfiction about family story that centers around her father, her uncle, and the events that linked them to the last of their lives. Danticat used the event of her father has end-stage pulmonary fibrosis and she is pregnant with her first child as a frame of her memoir. Danticat’s information is taken “from official documents, as well as borrowed recollections of family members” (Danticat 25). Danticat tells the story of the men she loved only because they can’t (26). “The blueberry picking” is a Donald Hall’s memoir collected in String Too Short to be Saved. It’s a memoir of the summer that he spent time with his grandparents’ New Hampshire farm when he was a boy. “The blueberry picking” takes the
moment in the story Tim’s growth has shown as realizing that to protect his family he needs to go against his blood brother. After a long time of waiting and strife from war Winter finally arrives and its time for father to make his trip to Verplancks Point to sell his cattle. With Sam being gone Tim has been asked to go along on a new adventure.
...d few such as Anna, Stella, and Alice who broke free of the poison, lived their lives as Sam Toms’ did who rooted the family. They as he did lied, cheated, manipuled, and kept secrets to try to live a happy life which in actuality their lives were anything but.
It was Sunday October 8th about 8:45pm, when Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan went to visit the O’Learys’ house only to find out they were asleep. So Sullivan walked across the street to Thomas White’s house and sat down to lean against the fence. The wind was very strong that night and there was a party at the McLaughlin’s to celebrate the arrival of a relative from Ireland. Sullivan decided to go home when he noticed a fire in the O’Learys’ barn. He started shouting, “FIRE!” as loud as he could and ran to the barn to save the five cows, horse, and calf inside. As he did, his peg leg got stuck in the floorboards. He hung onto the calf as they made their way out (13, 14,15).
The loss of a loved one is never easy, and for author and memorist Coren Beck it shook him to his existential core and became the catalyst for a deep soul searching journey in which the exploration of his spiritual fortitude became a necessity that ultimately changed the course of his life. In his debut novel The Dead Brother Club, which memorializes his experiences, author Beck unflinchingly invites readers into his conflicted, grief shaken world and spiritual sojourn, which was started by the sudden and accidental death of his seventeen year old brother, Billy.
When the novel begins, Tom Joad, the protagonist of the story has just been released from the state prison in Oklahoma. He makes his way home to his family to find that the area has been deserted with everyone being “tractored” off the land. Most families, including Tom’s are headed to California in search of new work and new lives. Tom finds his family and they decide to take a huge risk by giving up the land they’ve been tethered to for generations. This uprooting of their family begins a long, slow change in identity for many family members as well as family dynamics and structure.
He gives them $50 and directions to a church outside of town. The boys hop on a freight train and find the hideout where they are to wait until Dally comes for them. Hiding in an abandoned, rural church, they feel like real outsiders, with their greased, long hair and general hoody appearance. They both cut their hair, and Pony colors his for a disguise. They pass the time in the church playing cards and reading aloud from Gone with the Wind.
The book, Grapes of Wrath, follows the life of the Joad family, who live in Oklahoma during the Depression. The story begins with the return of Tom Joad from prison, where he has spent the last few years. He killed a boy in a bar fight and is now on parole. He is taken by surprise when he returns to Oklahoma only to find that his house is in ruins and his family is not there. He doesn’t know that, while he was gone, the banks forced his family and thousands of others off their land. Tom is accompanied by a former priest, Casey, who searches with Tom for his family. Tom and Casey find the Joad family at Tom’s uncle’s house. The family is preparing to move west to California in hopes that they will find jobs and escape the Dust Bowl drought. The Dust Bowl drought has killed all the farmer’s crops and the land has lost it’s richness. Tom decides to travel with his family, even though he’s going against parole rules by leaving the state.