My Brother Sam is Dead: Thematic Analysis

Throughout the book, My Brother Sam is Dead, Tim Meeker is a young boy who goes through a lot of changes. Not just physically, but mentally. He sees everything through different eyes as the war changes him. In the beginning, he is naive, innocent, confused, obedient, dutiful, and very impressionable. Then, throughout the book, things start to change his state of mind. When Sam joins the rebels, Tim is still a little boy, with the mentality of a little boy. He still admires his older brother. When the war starts to become a slight reality, Mr. Heron hires him to send a message. He starts to become a bit more headstrong and disobedient. After that, life starts to cave in on him and his family. He and his father take a trip to Verplank’s point; there his father is arrested for selling beef to the British. Tim is still confused and doesn’t know which side of this war to take. That experience has made him mature, he doesn’t try to avoid his chores and he willingly helps his mother with anything now that he is the man of the house. He is obedient but a free thinker. When Sam dies, Tim is a man mentally. War had changed him and now he realizes just how much the war had changed his brother. Tim Meeker learns that glory is an illusion because he witnesses firsthand how values degenerate during war.

Sam is always looking for glory. That was the main reason he joined the Rebel army. Tim sees Sam as glorious at the beginning of the book and always wanted Sam to tell him about the “telling points” he made during debates in college. He always wanted to be glorious like Sam. Sam has always sought out glory, even before the war. He finds it too, by doing things that bring him attention. Even at the end of the book when he is starving, he doesn’t stop trying to find glory in the war. He never realizes that it is an illusion. Tim loses that illusion, but it takes him many deaths to realize there is no glory in war. He realizes that neither army is glorious and both do wrong deeds against the innocent people and their own neighbors.

Tim has lost his illusions of war through witnessing what inglorious things that both armies have done. He witnesses how all values degenerate during war. To be a soldier, killing is a requirement. They have to kill anyone at a moments notice, even their own fathers. By doing things such as these, a soldier’s values slowly slip away. This is what Tim saw. He saw a messenger get shot from his horse. He saw a man get decapitated during a small fight. He heard about men killing a boy who he knew and of soldiers stealing from starving families so they could feed themselves. He also heard about people being tarred and feathered for being Tory or Rebel. He witnesses terrible things by both armies. He realized that war wasn’t glorious, it was a disturbing destruction of morals.

The English Channel Tunnel

Irish Potato Famine

Scandinavia

The Scandinavian countries are Norway, Sweden, Finland, and sometimes Denmark and Iceland. These were all inhabited by the Vikings at one point in time, and have been dubbed “Scandinavia”. They are all located by the Atlantic Ocean and are located above the equator, and they all have mild weather conditions. All the countries accept for Iceland are European, but Iceland is independent and is near Greenland. Scandinavian countries have a unique physical geography because of volcanoes and glaciers.
All of these countries have a unique physical geography. They have pines, mountains, and unpolluted lakes. It is a mainly untouched land. In the winter, the snow falls for almost six straight months. Even though most of the land has many hills, there is some flat land for people to farm and plow on. One of the unique landforms they have is a fjord. Fjords are like natural harbors and are very were useful protection for the people that lived along the sea in the medieval days.
Volcanoes or glaciers have shaped most of these countries. The ones near Europe are mainly formed and eroded by glaciers, as where Iceland is completely a mound of volcanoes. Over many thousands of years, volcanoes have erupted underwater and built on themselves to eventually surface and become an island. This island is Iceland. There are specific landforms that are formed by glaciers; a Horn is a sharp peaked mountain formed when two glaciers jam into one another, bringing land up with them. A Tarn is a glacial lane caused by a glacier moving though a valley. There are still glaciers in the world, but definitely not a massive as they used to be. Most of Scandinavia was covered in glaciers thousands of years ago. But now, the glaciers have gone and volcanoes have emerged from the sea to form the unique Scandinavian countries.

The Peruvian Andes

For transportation the Andean used different ways to cross bodies of water. They used rafts, bridges, and hanging baskets called oroya. Their Andean roads system was the most extravagant and highly advanced road system in Pre- Colombian South America. It was based on two North-South roads with many branches. There were also buildings at intervals along this advanced road called qolqa or qollqa. These harbored food, clothing, and weapons. The Chasqui are runners. These messengers carry messages in a relay system. Sometimes the messages are in knotted cord (quipu) or in spoken messages. They not only carried messages, but packages like fish and smaller objects. These messengers could travel distances up to 160 miles a day.
Terraces and Llamas are both part of the Andean human- environment interaction. They use the terraces to grow their crops. since they live in the mountains there is very little level ground. So they cut terraces into the side of the mountain. They look like giant stair-steps and are easily harvested. The Andean also used the Llamas that were on the mountain as tamed pack animals. They are sure footed and can carry heavy loads.
In the Andes mountains, there are many amazing features in the mountains. In fact, there are beautiful lakes high up in the mountains. The Andean have changed the landscape though. They have made their villages and cities in the mountains and carved terraces into the mountains' sides. These characteristics are physical and human.
Peru has many regions. The regions that the Andean live in is the mountains areas. There are many divisions in Peru for different regions. They Andean live in the Western regions.
The Andean are located in Peru. Peru is located in Brazil. Brazil is located on Earth, and so on. To me, there really isn't a way to describe location. Unless it's relative. They live just about all on the West coast of Brazil.

Conflict in Haiti

Aztec's Culture Slideshow