In My Brother Sam is Dead by the Collier brothers Tim is struggles between his loyalty to father or Sam. While reading about Tim's struggle, I have learned that war can divide and destroy individuals, families and communities. Authors often tell the story of people and their problems that they have to overcome. Holes is a story of how a boy has to overcome being in a new environment with no friends. Ajeemah and his son is a story of a father and his son being separated and sold into slavery. My Brother Sam is Dead by the Collier brothers, is a story of a boy named Tim overcoming the problems that war has caused him and is family. Lastly, it tells the story of how war can divide and destroy individuals, families and communities alike.
War can
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Tim often lies to his family to do something he wants, which often puts him in danger. Also, Tim disobeys his father’s advice in order to score telling points for Sam. Finally, Sam fights with father about the Patriot cause and what he believes in which often causes him to run away. These are some examples of how war can divide and destroy families. The Collier brothers also use a full paragraph description to describe fathers experience in war to show that war can divide and destroy families. This paragraph is important because in this scene father is trying to convince Sam to drop out of the army. If this scene had never happened Sam would probably not visit home as much because this scene shows that father loves and cares about Sam, because he is trying to convince him to not put his life on the line by participating in the war. This shows that war can separate family members for long periods of time if they are not accepted back because of their choice. And finally war can divide and destroy communities. For example, when the Continental soldiers come to the tavern to get the Brown Bess from father because they think he is a tory (they think this because Redding was known to be a tory town and they didn’t want tories to have guns). This scene shows that people are forced to pick and choose sides and turn against other community members in times of
My Brother Sam is Dead Author: by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier Category: Historical Fiction Summary: It starts out in the 1770's during the Revolution War and Samuel Meeker or Sam for short just interred the room of the tavern and he chimes in to everybody who is waiting to eat, he comes in saying where beating the Lobster Backs. His father, Eliphalet Meeker but called Life for short, starts arguing with son. After a while they calmed down and change the subject.
In my opinion I believe the novel “My Brother Sam is Dead’ gives a very vivid account of historical events. The way soldiers are described, laying on the ground with blood on their shirt is a very realistic scene, I would say this novel is a very accurate story with fictional characters that gives you a very clear vision of what a family could have faced during that
In the novel, Eldon and Frank Starlight, who are father and son, have a strained relationship. When Eldon accused Frank of an inability to understand war because he had never fought in one before, Frank said, “‘Not one of my own, leastways.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Means I’m still livin’ the one you never finished,’ (Wagamese 168).” He was explaining to his father that experiences don’t need to be physically experienced; they may also be mentally experienced. Frank knows a different type of war. It is the war where he grew up not knowing anything about his past, other than the fact that he is an Indigenous person. Whereas, Eldon’s war experience was a physical experience with the trauma and post traumatic stress of fighting in the Korean War. Inevitably, Frank ends up realizing that these stories though different, through empathy and an attempt to understand each other, they can bring people together. Wagamese’s strong connection to empathy is a grueling one. In an interview done with Shelagh Rogers, Wagamese spoke about not being there for his children. He said, "The lack of a significant parent is really, really a profound sorrow, a profound loss. It's a bruise that never really heals" (Rogers). With the difficult history of Wagamese’s family, he wanted to be able to pass on those meaningful lessons learned to his children. This is important because having learnt something like that from a parent or guardian is really meaningful to a child; it is a part of the parent and their past that will never leave and carries on through the child. The authors empathetic portrayal of his characters is direct result of the cultural influences of his
about the war and his lack of place in his old society. The war becomes
As you go through the journey of life you begin to realize the many obstacles you have to over come but what charts your growth is home you over come them. This quote resembles the story of My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier. Brothers Christopher and James have been writing historical fiction for young people since the early 1970s and have been known as masters of the genre. This book was named a Newbery Honor Book in 1975 and recently received a Phoenix Award. It has also taught an entertaining glimpse into a teenager's life in colonial times. Using real dates, people, and historical events it has a almost reality based story to grow and progress as a character of the American Revolution.
“They carried shameful memories” (20). In the first short story, The Things They Carried, Tim discusses some of the memories he is left with from the Vietnam war, and how he does not agree with war, therefore these memories bring shame to him. The divorce is a shameful memory to me, hearing my parents argue back and forth for so long and say such hateful things is something I won’t ever be able to erase from my head. It’s something I will always carry around with me, and it sparks up at the most inconvenient times. These memories have gotten in the way and ruined relationships for me. Not only will I carry this around though, I also believe the divorce is a shameful memory to my parents. Not necessarily that they made the wrong decision, but that they allowed the fighting to be so close to my siblings and I. They can see how it affects us, especially now as we are starting to get into relationships they can see our trust
Wes (the author) has a family who wants to see him succeed. Although Wes didn’t know his father for long, the two memories he had of him and the endless stories his mother would share with him, helped guide him through the right path. His mother, made one of the biggest effects in Wes’s life when she decided to send him to military story, after seeing he was going down the wrong path. Perhaps, the other Wes’s mother tried her best to make sure he grew up to be a good person, but unfortunately Wes never listen. His brother, Tony was a drug dealer who wish he could go back in time and make the right decisions and he wanted Wes to be different than him. He didn’t want his brother to end up like him and even after he tried everything to keep Wes away from drugs, nothing worked and he gave up. As you can see, both families are very different, Wes (the author) has a family who wants him to have a bright future. Most importantly, a family who responds fast because right after his mother saw him falling down the wrong hill she didn’t hesitate to do something about it. The other Wes isn’t as lucky, as I believe since his mother already had so much pressure over keeping her job and her son Tony being involved in drugs. Same thing with Tony, he was so caught up in his own business that no one payed so much attention to
The author clearly shows how his childhood effected his adulthood, making in a living example of what he is writing about allowing the audience to more easily trust what he is writing about. Instead of using factually evidence from other dysfunctional family incidences, the author decides to make it more personal, by using his own life and comparing family ideas of the past to the present.
“War is brutish, inglorious and a terrible waste” (Sledge 315). E.B Sledge says this when describing war after two grueling campaigns in the Pacific. However, there is irony. Earlier in the war, Sledge is hungry for war, for action, for involvement. War intrigues him, then like most, he feels the reality of it. This is one of the main focuses in With the Old Breed. Sledge’s view of war changes as he continues through the war and beyond, along with his understanding of conflict and the realization of war being the solution.
What is war really like all together? What makes war so horrifying? The horror of war is throughout All Quiet on the Western Front. For example Albert says the war has ruined them as young people and Paul agrees. “Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything." He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.” (Remarque, Chapter 5). The way the war has affected each soldier has changed them forever. The boys who were once school boys will never be the same.
The way the characters change emphasises the effect of war on the body and the mind. The things the boys have to do in the act of war and “the things men did or felt they had to do” 24 conflict with their morals burning the meaning of their morals with the duties they to carry out blindly. The war tears away the young’s innocence, “where a boy in a man 's body is forced to become an adult” before he is ready; with abrupt definiteness that no one could even comprehend and to fully recover from that is impossible. The story is riddled with death; all of the dead he’s has seen: Linda, Ted Lavender, Kiowa, Curt Lemon, the man he killed, and all the others without names.
This whole story is based around the horrors and actions which take place during war, and we therefore get involved in the scenery of war and become very familiar of what the characters must feel.
“Every war is everyone’s war”... war will bring out the worst in even the strongest and kindest people. The book tells about how ones greed for something can destroy everything for both people and animals leaving them broken beyond repair, leaving them only with questions… Will they ever see their family again? Will they ever experience what it’s like to
...eard the gunfire, no longer in terror and fear, "Father. My Father he thought." Sarty tried to think good thoughts about his father thinking, "he was brave!" He served as a solder under Colonel Sartoris in the war! When the morning sun came up, he was finally on his own to be his own man, free to make his own individual decisions without worrying about what his father would do to him. It was from Sarty's dilemma of family loyalty and the desire to please his father that kept him from doing the right things. Was his father so bitter due to experiences he had during the Civil War ? Was it society's fault for what happened to his father? Was Abner just born with his us against them attitude? These are all questions that Faulkner leaves with us after reading the "Barn Burning." and is part of that fire in the back of our minds that we will never be able to put out..
The war contributed to making the working class society believe that they were doing they’re part in helping “Big Brother” stop corruption and keeping the society in an orderly state. Big Brother manipulated the society by making up a war using previous pictures and images of a war that happened years ago. The war was also used to erase existing history that the government did not want the society to know. Furthermore, the war was used to keep the government and economy as the basis of power and maintain the balance of “Big Brother’s civilization”. The war mentioned in the film and book led to a conformed and controlled society.