Cole's School Blog Everything to do with school....kinda.

At the age of 12 Tim is already the average colonial boy, loving his parents, and admiring his brother. He obeys his parents and does his chores without complain. By the end of the book he is fully mature and headstrong like his brother. In My Brother Sam is Dead Tim Meeker learns that glory is an illusion because he witnesses first hand how values degenerate during war.

Sam is always seeking glory in daily life. Tim admires Sam, but slowly respects him less and less throughout the book, mainly because of the crimes and war influenced things he does. Then finally realizes glory is an illusion. He realizes this when Father dies, when Sam is executed, and when he witnesses deaths. A When Sam was young he was always looking for ways to score “telling points” he joined the debate team showed off to Tim. Sam stayed a headstrong boy all through the book and never lost his dreams of glory.

Time saw, in many ways, how values degenerate during war. The major tipping point was when he witnessed the decapitation of Ned the slave. He was so disgusted that he vomited on himself and was basically scarred for life. Another time was when he saw the messenger get shot and left to die. He realized that the longer a solider is in a war the easier it becomes to kill a man and thinking nothing of it.