My Brother Sam Is Dead :: essays research papers

In the novel, My Brother Sam is Dead, the author demonstrates the effects of war on families, on towns, and even on the children. The author makes it clear that war tears up families more than anything else. As a result of families getting ruined, it affects the children of the family, in this case, by making Tim grow up in a short amount of time. War affects towns, too. Soldiers, some from both sides, raid houses and kill people therefore splitting up towns and communities. War has many bad effects, just like Tim’s father said: â€Å"In war the dead pay the debts of the living.†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  War affects families more than anything else. An example of this is when Tim’s mother drinks rum a lot when she finds out that her husband and son are dead or are going to get killed. Once she starts to drink, she does not care about Tim or Sam. So in this case, war caused her to drink and it killed half of her family, both of which ruined the Meeker family. One of war’s worst by-products is ruining families. Even though war affects families the most, there are still other bad effects on children and on towns.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The second bad by-product of war is the effect on children. First, war sometimes kills children’s parents or older siblings, throwing their responsibility on to the younger children’s shoulders. The children will never have a normal life of playing with others because they are too busy taking care of things. In the novel, MBSID, Tim had to grow up fast. The reason for this is that his father got killed and his brother, Sam, got killed. So Tim had to do all of the man work around the tavern.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There is one last main effect from war. It is the effect on towns and communities. It ruins towns and communities by ruining families and children. You can think of it as a link chain: the families and children are the links of the chain, and the town is the whole chain. If one family gets ruined, the link is gone, making it an incomplete chain or town.