My Brother Detailed Scene Analysis

My Brother: Detailed Scene Analysis (page 87 to )

What the Scene is about:

The author remembers her brother dying and calling for his mother and his two brothers. He does not call his sister’s name. He dies without owning a home, or having somebody of his own, except for his mother and brothers. The author does not mind that Devon didn’t call out her name, because she was not a real part of his life or his family has only known him for the first few years of his life, and the last few years.

Once he dies he is taken from his mother's house. The author visits her brother’s dead, smelling body, because she wants to see what her brother looks like now that he is dead. Her brother is zipped up in a plastic bag, the type of bag used to protect expensive clothes. When the bag is unzipped and she sees her brother, she does not like him. His mouth and eyes are wide open, he is unshaven and his hair is messy. She sees him for the second time when he is in his coffin. He looks like an advertisement for the dead with his newly black-dyed hair, clamped lips, and sewn eyes. Kincaid keeps repeating that his eyes are sewn shut. Devon’s body is viewed by his mother, brothers, his mother’s friends and some old school-mates. The author has paid with traveler’s cheques for her brother's darkly varnished, pitch pine coffin, stuffed with bed linen so that his body remains in one place. Very few people come to Devon’s funeral, because of the fact that he died from such a shameful, sexually transmitted disease and not many people knew him. The author’s mother comments on Devon’s body, saying that it does not resemble Devon. The author thinks of her brother in many ways: as the newborn child attacked by ants; as the two-year-old, left in her care, with a soiled nappy; as a criminal, or a cricket-player, or a smoker of marijuana; a sick man told that he was dying from the HIV virus; or as the man who believed he was getting better and was having sex with women, and maybe men. She wonders which type of person her brother had enjoyed being the most.

Another man, also an AIDS victim, is being buried at the same time, in the same cemetery, but the two families do not speak to each other. The minister’s sermon promises that families will be reunited in the after life, so they should be comforted, but this is nit the case with the author. She feels annoyed at this and she does not want to think that she would want to meet any of the people present at the funeral again, because she has had enough of them in her current life. Devon’s brother, who lives in the same house ...

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Purposes of the scene:

∙ It shows the authors realization that she did, in fact, care about her brother, she just didn’t know the extent of her love until after his death.

∙ It demonstrates the complexity of life and love.

∙ To show the pain caused by AIDS, physically and psychologically, not only to the victim, but to the family of the deceased.

∙ To suggest that one can love somebody without directly knowing it.

Characters:

Jamaica Kincaid- She is confused about her feelings towards her family. She does not want to meet them again since she had had enough of them in this life. Her family means nothing and yet they mean everything to her. She has angry and confused memories of her family.

Annie Drew
In this portrait of Kincaid’s mother, there’s one central and shocking truth that Kincaid revisits many times: ‘‘my mother hates her children.’’ The author admits that their mother loves them best when they are dying. They need her. It’s when they are walking around that she’s critical of them. When they are thriving.

Central Theme: Anger Taking Over Peoples’ Lives
This is a recurring theme, mainly concerning the author’s feelings toward her family and toward Antigua, the country of her birth. She reflects on her anger and admits that she is susceptible to it. Because of her anger she behaves in a weird manner and she finds it a heavy burden traveling to and from the USA to Antigua, a country that she does not even like. Her other siblings are also irate and hostile, especially towards their mother (like the author).

Style The author hardly separates he work into chapters or even paragraphs, and thus the prose seems almost poetic. She creates a flow of thoughts, one after the other with her use of simple language.

Symbols The fact that the author hardly uses any breaks could symbolize life, which can never be paused or rewound. However, when she says “My brother died.” (page 87) it is end-stopped. Perhaps this means that life fast-forwards itself and ends so abruptly when one dies.

Diction The diction of each family member reveals a great deal. The author’s writing is formal, and her choice of words and communication contrasts that of her mother and siblings. The author uses harsh, outspoken vocabulary, making the reader familiar with her reality, and her birth place, Antigua. She develops strong arguments about AIDS and how cruel the disease can be. Her words portray real human emotions.

Metaphor
Devon’s death could be a metaphor of the impossibility of an escape from something. In Devon’s case it was a killer disease, and for the author it was her family roots and her failure to shut out her birth-place from her memory.

Tone The tone in this scene is mainly a grim one, with sadness and a portrayal of Devon’s life being wasted. However there are some slight tones of compassion, such as when the author weeps at her brother’s funeral.

Personification AIDS is personified in the same way as the colonizing powers

Oxymoron: In this scene there is an oxymoron of “love-hate” with the author’s confusion about whether she loves her family or hates them.