Themes In My Brother Sam Is Dead

The majority of people during the American Revolution fought for liberty without realizing the actual cost and brutal reality of war. In the novel My Brother Sam is Dead, the Meeker family consisting of a Father name Life, a Mother named Susannah, a rebellious teen named Sam, and a conflicted teen named Tim, journey through the life of colonists owning a tavern during the Revolutionary War. Sam departs from his family to fight alongside the Patriots going against his Father, a Tory. War brings a lot of terrible things, but some examples are families splitting, clash of generation, and an overall theme of principle vs reality. The soldiers who fought in the war thought they were fighting for liberty, when really they caused havoc and awfulness. War causes a lot of malevolent things to

Another way to hurt friends and family. As Sam was talking to Father and the church pastor, Mr.Beach, Mr.Beach stopped Sam and Father, “All right, all right. Let’s not argue the point” (Collier and Collier 5). Sam is part of a new generation, he is trying to persuade his Father and Mr.Beach, the old generation, that he is right and that only he knows what is going on. These two generations are clashing against each other in order to prove their knowledge and points about the war. Not only is the younger generation fighting to prove a point to the elders, but Yale students ran away to fight in the war. As the authors described the reality of the story, they both explain, “Yale students did rush away to get weapons and join the war in 1775” (Collier and Collier 214). The majority of the older generation did not go run to join the fight, but most young teens did. Even though the students think that they were doing something brave or bold, they did not listen to their parents to tell them otherwise. Both of these examples of clashing generations proves that war brings brutalness to families, clashes generations, and