Perhaps one of Brothers’ most condemning traits is that he doesn’t know when enough is enough. This is shown throughout the story as he’s constantly pushing Doodle past his limits, especially towards the end of the story when Doodle overexerting himself contributes to him dying or when he forces Doodle to touch his own coffin. Although, with all of these negative traits put aside, one of his more admirable traits is that he’s very driven. He’s driven by physical endurance, love, and deep connections with other characters like Doodle; which is shown when Brother tries his hardest to teach him how to walk just so the kids at school won’t make fun of him for not being able to. Besides all of these positive traits however, he’s also driven by difficult emotions like shame and guilt for the same reason, and is shown when Brother says “Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (434). This shows that of the only reasons he decided to teach Doodle to walk in the first place was because he was ashamed of him, instead of actually caring about Doodle’s …show more content…
Even though he is metaphorically ‘tied’ to Doodle for his sake, he’s allowed to enjoy things that Doodle can’t do or doesn’t enjoy. Here is where the theme of “Guilt and Blame” comes in: “I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind with a wall of rain dividing us… soon I could hear his voice no more” (441). This brings his immense amounts of physical endurance back into play, as he’s frightened by the storm and is determined to get away from it, thus he runs. But, out of fear, he forgets that Doodle can’t run and gets left behind to die. For the rest of his life Brother feels guilty for running away, and blames himself (along with other characters, but not as much) for Doodle’s