Essay On My Brother Sam Is Dead

During the Revolutionary War, 4,435 patriots lost their lives due to brutal combat. This is way too many deaths for one newborn country to handle, and especially when going up against an army like England's. Just to be free from taxes, it is not worth it to go through as brutal war as it was and risk so many lives for it. The three reasons on why the authors, James and Christopher Collier, of the book My Brother Sam Is Dead, are against war are division of family, clash of generations, and principle vs. reality. The Meeker family has had a significant impact of division of family in this novel for being against the war. There has been many outbreaks and fights, mainly involving Sam and Mr. Meeker. The first outbreak with the Meeker family was Sam and Mr. Meekers fight in the beginning of the book. It started out with Sam wanting to go to war and father not wanting him to. “ You don’t understand, Father, you just don’t understand. If they won’t let us be free, we have to fight. Why should they get rich off of our taxes?” (Collier, Collier 7). This is a very valid reason for why the author may be for war, but father has his reasons not to go to war. “I will not have treason spoken in my house, Sam. God meant man to obey. He meant children to obey their fathers, he meant man to obey their kings.” (
Clash of Generations is the young vs. the elder. During the novel the Yale students went to go get all the weapons they could to store them in the college to fight the British. The older generation of students did not approve of this, and this caused arguments. ‘“ A lot of people aren’t go to fight.’ said Tim. ‘Well all the Yale students are already going to get weapons to store up for the war.’ said Sam” (Collier, Collier 33). In this argument, Tim is trying to decide whether or not he wants to be a Tory or a rebel. This is another one of the reasons why the author is against