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Jerry's Decision Of Neutrality In My Brother Sam Is Dead

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The outcomes of war can sometimes be positive and sometimes negative. In My brother Sam is Dead the authors, James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, are trying to tell you that war can be good like Patriots fighting for our freedom. Since WWII had already passed we get the advantage of knowing that the patriots won and gained freedom. However at the time people didn’t know if their sacrifices will be actually worth it. War shouldn't be considered a mandatory action even if we may win because there’s still the lives being taken because of it, children killed by men with guns in their hands. The irony of Jerry, Life, and Sam’s death all influence Tim’s decision of neutrality.
The ironic and injustice way Jerry’s dies influences Tim’s decision to become neutral about war. Jerry, Tim’s best friend, gets captured by the British and dies in the prison ship. He worked on the farm and no one knew that such a tragedy could happen to him. Especially in the very unfair way he died. The British just captured and killed him; they killed a …show more content…

Life hates war and just wants his family to obey the king and not die. He’s seen war and has been in one, and when he’s arguing with Sam about war, he states, “Have you ever heard a man shriek when he felt a bayonet go through the middle of his back? I have, Sam, I have” (21). So, Life has seen the reality of war and is now traumatized. He just doesn’t want Sam and his family to have to go through the same thing as him. Life was very loyal and he gets in return was death by the people he was so loyal to. Tims for sure doesn’t expect his dad to die by the Loyalists maybe the Patriots or some robbers but definitely not the people Life showed so much loyalty to. Tim is upset because his dad gets killed by his side on the war. And this shows Tim that loyalty is not rewarded. Life’s loyalty not being rewarded directs Tim to

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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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After analyzing “On the Rainy Road” through an archetypal lens, it is clear that the symbols effectively indicate that going to war was a terrible decision. To start, Tim’s archetypal character showed that he was not emotionally ready to go to war. For instance, when Tim was trying to decide if he should go to war or run away to Canada, he had flashbacks described as follows, “I saw a seven-year-old boy in a white cowboy hat… I saw a sixteen-year-old kid decked out for his first prom, looking spiffy in a white tux,” (O’Brien). Tim imagined the colour white which is the archetypal colour for purity and innocence, showing he represents the divine child archetype.

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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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Since he opposes the war originally, Tim has to alter his ideologies completely. He is forced to do something he once thought unfathomable, in order to become a soldier, and “take aim at another human being” (175). By doing this just to avoid “patriotic ridicule” (186) Tim goes against everything he believes in solely to ensure people do not judge him. Tim chooses to make tremendous sacrifices of not only his own life but is forced to live with the blood of those he will have to kill. Even if he does survive the war, he will never be the same due to what he sees or does while in Vietnam.

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This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.

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“War is never fair,” Colonel Read admitted (Collier and Collier 200). In the book, My Brother Sam is Dead, the authors James and Christopher Collier show that war is never fair and they are against it. They use Tim and Sam Meeker to show how it is not fair. The authors use separation of families, gruesome killings, and principle versus realities to show that they are against war. War has many effects on people and has taken many innocent lives.

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Tim is obsessed with getting honor and glory; when he saw that war did not always promise that outcome, he wanted to avoid fighting and become

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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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For example, Mr. Meeker is taken by cattle thieves posing as Patriots and ironically ends up dying on a British prison ship (Collier and Collier 127 + 164). His death could have been prevented, and frankly he should not have been killed. Also, it was not really fair that he ended up dying on a British prison ship. Sam’s death is also a horrifying example of how sometimes the events of war are not always as presumed. Sam ends up being falsely accused of stealing his own cattle by the Patriots, his own side (Collier and Collier 186).

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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 Meeker’s family has been split up as a result of the war because Tim’s father is a loyalist while his brother, who he looks up to, enrolls in the war as a Patriot. Tim has to grow up through the novel and he has to decide for himself

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There was no sense of morality or politics or duty. Tim completed what he was trained to do, and that was to defend the camp against the enemy. The lone soldier was the enemy. Later Tim views his actions as impulsive and regrets throwing the grenade, despite his peers’ support. Tim declares, “Sometimes I forgive myself, sometimes I don’t.

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You decide for yourself to pull the trigger”. This quote shows how Timothy in this situation cared about his men getting killed and didn’t want it to happen so he took a risk by firing at civilians to keep his men alive. Following this, a similar quote by Sebastian Junger talks about how during a fight the “death” of one soldier affects another. He says, “The worst thing that happened to him in Afghanistan was one of his men was hit in the head with a bullet in the helmet, knocked him over. They thought he was dead.

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I went to the war.” (last paragraph 58) This helps us understand that going to war was not an accomplishment for Tim. He regretted not running away and hated that he went.

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