My Brother Sam Is Dead Essay

War is one of the most controversial and fascinating aspects of human life, which includes sacrifice, argument, and worst of all human death. The argument of war is whether or not the sacrifice of human life is necessary or not. The authors of My Brother Sam Is Dead are totally against war; they are neutral and they give Tim the same idea as them in the novel. They even show the irony and cruelty of war in the book by the punishing and ironic deaths of Ned, Sam, and Life. This novel is based in Redding, Conneticut during the time of the Revolutionary War. 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

Out of most deaths, it looks like Tim is more impacted by Sam’s than any other. Tim is outraged that Sam is being blamed and punished for something he didn’t do just to discipline the other soldiers.Sam is accused of stealing his own cattle and is sentenced to be executed by his own side; Tim watches the execution full-heartedly, in sadness, and he even yells out during the execution, “ ‘Don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him’ and at that moment Sam slammed backwards as if he was hit by a mallet” (208). Those were Tim’s final words that Sam could here before being blasted. Sam’s passing is as ironic a death you could write for Sam because Tim expected Sam to die, if he were to die in war, in battle and have a glory story with many telling points. 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