My Brother's Keeper

The short story My Brother's Keeper is a story that shows the significance of sibling love. The story starts with the boy finding out that his father died in a car accident in Florida. The boy was devastated and torn apart, and it didn't help that someone was going to live with him and sleep in his bed with him. This was his little brother who he had never met before. In the beginning, when he first saw him he didn't like him at all. "I don't like hating people, but when him step in through the door with him new bag, new shoes, new shirt, and new pants, and me sit down there in the living room, barefoot snd tear-up, tear-up, I hate him even more" (Geoffrey Philp, My Brother's Keeper). What both boys do share is the love they had for their father. That is a bond that will forever stay strong and the boys feel they can relate through the love they had for their father. Umpire, the older boy in Jamaica was promised a watch by his father when he would come back to visit. Unfortunately, since his father died he was not able to get the watch. I see this story as when you lose one thing, you gain another thing. Umpire lost his father, and his father's watch, but he gained David, his younger brother. The love between siblings is unbreakable and unique in this situation with their father now gone. In a way, they have themselves to fill the void that their father left.  

Comments

  1. Craig SpellNovember 22, 2020 at 11:27 AM

    This story does a great job of showing how the boy deals with grieving his father's death and how he moves from an anger towards his stepbrother to acceptance and realizing that the stepbrother does not have disdain towards him. Certainly knowing the other son got the watch on top of finding out the terrible news was a lot for this young child and anyone would be very upset. By the end of the story, though, when the narrator says, "I couldn't believe it. It end up that me owe him. The little idiot save me." While it certainly does not seem the two are best friends yet, we start to see them heading towards a more familial relationship and I like to think that if the story kept going, we would continue to see the two become even more like brothers.

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  2. JP RicheyNovember 22, 2020 at 10:19 PM

    I do think that you are right about the boys and this is a great analysis of their relationship. I also think the conflict is supposed to be the point since it serves as a symbol for the conflict of the relationship between race (colorism) and class (socioeconomic status). Also, I think there is a strong feminist theme given the mother’s role. She is always having to come in and take care of everyone regardless of race, class and social ills (alcoholism; abuse, etc.)

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  3. Grant RaddingNovember 23, 2020 at 7:22 AM

    I agree I think that this story is similar to Caribbean literature because it is about a broken family. most of the stories in Caribbean literature about broken families are about relationships that sour or never get fix however what I liked about this one was the 2 boys relationship got better.

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