43 pages • 1 hour read
David ChariandyBrother: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Lasting Effects of Loss and Trauma
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses police brutality, murder, and racism.
In Brother, Chariandy explores the lasting effects of loss and trauma. Specifically, Francis’s death is a loss that causes such profound grief that his loved ones find it difficult to move forward with their lives.
In the decade after Francis dies, Michael’s mother experiences complicated grief, a mental health diagnosis. Michael’s mother regularly dissociates from life, experiencing what Michael calls “spells” in which she becomes easily lost in space and time and avoidant of other emotions. This represents a major regression from the person she was before Francis’s death. She had been engaged with life, a hard worker who had hope for her family’s future. The trauma of her son’s death completely transforms her. Michael’s mother gave up her own family in Trinidad. Her immigration journey has been difficult, and Francis’s death is a painful reminder that her best intentions couldn’t protect her children from the racism of the country to which she immigrated. These lasting effects of loss and trauma oppress Michael’s mother for 10 years. She only begins to reconnect with the world when Jelly, prompted by Aisha, comes back into her life. The key to relieving her grief is to embrace her community, especially the people who also loved Francis. It is not until she is hit by a car that reality becomes clear for Ruth: In falling into her trauma, she hasn’t been honoring Francis by living her own life.
Michael also endures the lasting effects of loss and trauma. Michael is active about avoiding the world. He works a thankless job to help support his mother, but at work, he avoids conversations with others. Michael doesn’t have his own friends. Even when Aisha comes back into his life, Michael tries to keep her at an emotional distance, rejecting her ideas about honoring Francis by hosting a gathering. Though Michael claims he doesn’t want to upset his mother by having a lot of people around, it is Michael who is most cautious with others. Francis’s death has taught him about the fragility of life and to be mistrusting of others. Like his mother, Michael subconsciously wants to remain in his grief. He becomes nervous about the outside world, which has proven to be unsafe. Francis was Michael’s protector; without Francis, Michael is scared of what else could happen.
While Michael and Ruth spend much of the narrative caught a cycle of complicated grief that prevents them from reaching their full potential, the novel ends on a hopeful note. By letting other people back into their lives despite their vulnerability, Michael and his mother can move forward from their traumatic loss.
The Aspirations and Struggles of Young People in Marginalized Communities
In Brother, Chariandy exposes how society is an obstacle to the aspirations of young people in marginalized communities.
Francis sees his dear friend Jelly’s potential. Jelly is a DJ who mixes music from different cultures. Jelly’s music celebrates his African roots and his contemporary Canadian heritage, creating music that is unique to his marginalized community. Francis helps Jelly prepare for a big audition with rap producers but is devastated when the producers aren’t blown away by Jelly. For Francis, this is confirmation of his belief that Black kids from his neighborhood are viewed as losers. Francis has only seen people like him fail. Without a role model to emulate or a realistic example of success to celebrate, Francis internalizes his inability to get out of Scarborough as proof of his low self-worth. Jelly tries to embrace the world and be part of it, but society at large shuts him out. The aspirations that young people have in marginalized communities are destroyed by a society that refuses to accept them.
In addition to feeling that there is no possible future for him, Francis is a frequent target of police harassment. Law enforcement thus adds to the struggles Francis already faces as a young Black man from a poor neighborhood. The regular raids at Desirea’s, as occurs on the night Francis is murdered, are indicative of society’s suspicion of large groups of Black men. Francis and his friends are never given any valid justification for these searches, and his impassioned demand for a reason directly leads to his death. Francis knows that being Black in Canada means that he will always be considered suspicious, no matter his innocence. While Francis experiences internal conflict, it’s the external struggle of racial oppression and marginalization that defeats his spirit.
Once on a similar path to Aisha’s, Michael also gives up on his aspirations. They both got good grades, but Aisha went to college on a scholarship while Michael stayed behind in Scarborough, working a retail job. He gives up on his potential because he watched Francis’s growing apathy about the future and internalized it after Francis’s death. Aisha proves that it’s possible to start a dream career, to travel, and to break free of the more oppressive parts of their neighborhood while retaining the culture and pride of the people in the neighborhood. However, Aisha is depicted as a character who defies the odds. She is admired within the neighborhood precisely because she accomplished what most young people in this marginalized community could not. Michael could have been defined by his accomplishments as well. Instead, the pressures of taking care of his mother, his familial loyalty, and his internalized prejudice prevent Michael from reaching his full potential.
The Impact of Immigration and Racial Identity on Family Dynamics
In Brother, Chariandy analyzes the impact of immigration and racial identity on family dynamics. Brother celebrates the cultural diversity and contributions of immigrants as well as the resilience of immigrants who work hard to make a life in a new country. It also honors the difficulties of immigration, specifically the identity crisis that can occur when immigrants and their children are separated from their native cultures. Through Brother, Chariandy depicts how this crisis of identity impacts the dynamics of Michael’s family.
By Ruth’s accounts, Michael’s father was once a devoted father committed to making a life for his family in Canada. After arriving in Canada, though, he was defeated by the incessant lack of job opportunities and racist assumptions about his abilities. These defeats chipped away at his confidence and sense of self. Immigration, paired with a racialized identity in a new, foreign place, had a negative impact on Michael’s father, who ultimately abandoned his family along with his dreams.
Michael’s mother also struggles to make a life for herself in Canada. As a Black woman, she also experiences racism, and her aspirations to become a nurse don’t materialize. When she visits her family in Trinidad, she doesn’t tell them the truth about her life as a cleaner struggling to make ends meet in Canada. She faces the pressure of providing for her sons without support and doesn’t want her family to see her immigration adventure as a failure. Michael’s mother is therefore alone in her experience, unable to share her reality with anyone. Michael’s mother’s immigration experience is further tarnished by the murder of her son. Her complicated grief reflects not only the loss of her son but also her disappointment in her chosen home. Her dreams of a better life in Canada have failed her. She left the support network of her own people in Trinidad for loneliness, trauma, and grief. Even so, she doesn’t return to Trinidad, which highlights her resilience and her capacity to move forward with her life.
Francis and Michael are also impacted by immigration and racial identity. As Black boys in Canada, Francis and Michael are members of a marginalized community. This comes with a host of pressures, stressors, and racist traumas, including Francis’s death at the hands of police. By contrast, when they visit Trinidad, Francis and Michael experience life as part of the racial majority—for the first time in their lives, it is safe to be Black. The juxtaposition between Trinidad and Canada highlights the plight of being Black in Canada. However, because Francis and Michael only visit Trinidad once, they are not very well connected to their heritage and thus attempt to create a new heritage as first-generation Canadians. This is difficult to do because of the racism they face.
In Brother, Chariandy highlights a complex blend of hope, disappointment, and resilience that marks one family’s immigration experience, particularly when one’s racial identity in a new home is not valued or accepted.
