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Character Analysis: My Brother Sam Is Dead

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War doesn’t have a good side, whether it’s the side you're fighting on or the side you’re against, they both consist of massacres. Although there are a lot of unfortunate events that happen during war, the overall result - freedom throughout the country - is what makes war worth the fight. All the lives lost in war, have not died in vain. But, what really happens when people are in a first-hand experience with war? In the story My Brother Sam is Dead, Tim is caught in the middle of being a patriot or a loyalist. Because Life, a loyalist who died by the British; Sam, who was executed by his fellow companions and Jerry, a ten year old, who died for no reason; these horrendous events scrounge around Tim’s mind, he making him convinced that he will take a neutral stance. …show more content…

Life has dedicated his life to being loyal to the British, but does that give him an advantage? Mother stated, “...he’d been sent to a prison ship in New York. There was one funny thing about it, though- it wasn’t a Rebel prison ship, it was a British one,” (164). Life was sent to a prison ship by the side of war he was rooting for, the British. Although Mr. Meeker supported the British, but they didn’t care who he was and let him rot on the ship; loyalty was not rewarded. The author included this in the story because the readers wouldn’t think Life would die by the British, twisting our expectations of his death. The author tells us, through the story, that it doesn’t matter what side you are, death will always trail behind. The way Life talks about how the British troops being the “good side” makes Tim want to a loyalist, but after the father dies by the British, this sways Tim’s

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Throughout the story, Tim faced internal conflict as he struggled with the decision of whether to join his father in supporting the Tories or fighting them with Sam. For example, Tim says to Sam in a moment of desperation, ”Don’t come any closer, Sam, or I’ll

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My Brother Sam is Dead-Argumentative Essay In the book My Brother Sam is Dead, occurring during the Revolutionary War, the Meeker family is torn apart. Sam Meeker is a head-strong young adult that has decided to play soldier boy. Eliphalet or Life, Sam and Tim’s father, firmly believes Sam should have stayed home to help the family and stay loyal to King George III. Tim, Sam’s younger brother, is unsure which side is right, even though he has witnessed many arguments.

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My Brother Sam Is Dead Chapter 1: Page 1-22 Sam is Tim Meeker 's older brother. Tim always looks up to his older brother. Sam then comes home in a uniform at the tavern during April. He starts out by saying "We 've beaten the British in Massachusetts," which sparks up a fight between him and his father which is a loyalist (someone who respects the government and the king). Sam has a discussion with the guests at their tavern and his family on how the Minutemen had surprise attack on the "Lobster backs" (the British) in Lexington.

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My Brother Sam is Dead Essay My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln and Christopher Collier is a historical fiction about the life of young boy named Tim Meeker during the Revolutionary War. In the story, Tim is torn on whether he should side with his loyalist father, Life, or his patriotic brother, Sam. Eventually, Sam enlists in the Revolutionary Army, which causes major controversy in his family. With Sam gone and the war attacking their small town of Redding, everything is different for Tim.

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While most certainly brutal and violent, the results of war can be either positive or negative. On one side, countless lives are lost; on the other side, principles are upheld or won, and a new country now has the opportunity to prosper. For instance, the American Revolution. Beginning around 1775 and ending in 1783, the United States of America declared independence from Great Britain and became its own country. growing, prospering, and eventually going on to become the global superpower it is today.

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and he learns war is unfair, innocent people die and it is very brutal, and none of this leads to rewards. Tim decides to be neutral because he doesn’t want to align himself with either side because they are both unfair and kill innocent

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Tim would have expected Life to be the most safe one of their family due to his loyalty to Britain, but he was captured anyway. The death of Life Meeker makes Tim develop a strong hatred toward the Loyalists due to the fact that they do not value loyalty or care about the innocent, such as this instance. Tis develops Tim’s final decision of neutrality is influenced by Jerry’s death because both the British and Patriots caused the death of the ones he cared most

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When Tim was put into this dilemma he would be able to feel the shame and guilt off of others if he didn’t go to war. His peers, family members and community would never forgive him for going to Canada; they would think as him as a disappointment because he didn’t have the ability to stand up and fight for his country. “There were times when [he] thought [he’d] gone off the psychic edge”(P.48), which would be his natural reaction for being guilted into doing something that he didn’t want to do. He was ashamed that others around him were capable of going to war and he wasn’t, for this reason, instead of going to Canada he went to go and fight. Tim was influenced by the people around him because if he didn’t do what they wanted then he would feel this level of guilt and shame that would last a lifetime.

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In “On the Rainy River” Tim struggles to make a decision on whether he should fight for his country in the war or flee to Canada. Tim did not believe in the war. He was an innocent young man, freshly graduated from college with a naive view of the world. “Both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it, just take off and run like hell and never stop.” (Page 3/Paragraph 8)

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Tim’s expectations were not the case; instead Sam dies by being accused incorrectly of stealing his own cattle to teach other troops a lesson about how serious war is. The unecessary death of Sam inspires Tim to go neutral because Sam was not rewarded for valor and had no glory to his name. Tim doesn’t like that or want that so he chooses neither side of the

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In the book My Brother Sam is dead, a boy named Tim tells about his family’s life during the Revolutionary War. He lived in a town that was very loyal to King George. His biggest problem though was that his father was a loyalist and his brother, Sam, was joining the war to fight against the British. Who is right? Sam is.

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The societal and social pressures weighing on Tim’s mind were explained well in paragraph 28, “My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war.” With Tim’s extreme isolation, it was no surprise that these pressures could manifest in unusual ways. Towards the end of the short, Tim imagines a situation in which his family, friends, strangers, and prominent social figures were yelling at him from the Canadian shore. The societal isolation influenced who was there and what they were yelling. No card burning protesters were there to cheer him on, possibly because a week without the media pushed those memories aside.

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