John Edgar's Brothers and Keepers: A Struggle Against the Prison Institution

At the base of most stories is conflict; the protagonist verses the antagonist. This conflict is what works to drive the plot and contributes to the climax and resolutions of a story. The conflicts of a story are not always obvious and most times there are multiple conflicts within a single story. This case is no different for Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman. Wideman’s work is memoir that focuses on a comparison between himself and his brother that works to understand how each one of them ended up where they did in life. With in this work by Wideman there exist numerous conflicts, protagonists, and antagonists. One of the main conflicts that occur throughout the novel is between Robby (the protagonist) and Institutions (the antagonist). (Abbott 55).

The institution as an antagonist represents many different places/ideas toc Robby. However the first and possibly most obvious conflict is between Robby and the law as an institution. Robby is faced with an immediate conflict with the law after he is originally arrested and placed in jail. There was a two-year period between Robby’s arrest and his sentence. This in itself is a conflict and shows institutions acting as the hero’s chief opponent. “Though his constitutional rights to a speedy trial and speedy sentencing had clearly been violated, neither those wrongs, nor any others…were brought to the attention of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court…” (Wideman 19). The conflict continues because the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania took three years to deny his appeal, and by that time Robby was already at Western State Penitentiary serving a life sentence. This section of the book is viewed as a conflict because it was a barrier that Robby was placed up against. This conflict never r...

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...cognized as the antagonist. That is not to say that Robby is our hero and institutions are the anti-hero, instead what that is saying is that the institution is the constant oppressor that Robby must continually fight against just to receive the rights he should be granted as a citizen. Robby faces and still is facing a daily battle against the institution to keep his humanity, self-dignity, and vigilance to go on living and fighting.

Works Cited

Abbot, Porter H. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. New York: Cambridge UP, 2009.

Print.

Wideman, John Edgar. Brothers and Keepers. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984.

Print.

Wideman, John E. "From Brothers and Keepers to Two Cities Social and Cultural

Consciousness, Art and Imagination: An Interview with John Edgar Wideman." Interview by Jacqueline Berben-Masi. Callaloo 1999: 568-84. WSULIBS. Web.