Goodbye My Brother Analysis

The moment somebody walks outside, people suddenly start to judge. People make assumptions based on how people dress and look. “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Goodbye, My Brother” take place in a world where if men don’t wear a tie they look like a “thug,” a briefcase symbolizes respect, and they long for a return to their past glories. Each main character has a distinguishing feature or item of clothing- the garish hat, wedding dress, protruding teeth, or the holiday home. While introduced to the characters, it’s human nature to make assumptions, just like Julian, Lawrence, and the narrator. Making assumptions is powerful because it makes humans think: what do people think when they see someone dressed in a wedding dress versus someone dressed for a reducing class? Making assumptions is a tool that people use to get through life; but O’Connor and Cheever want the reader to think deeper about the pressing themes of family, the meaning of success, and religion to develop an identity for the literary characters based on contextual evidence. Every summer the Pommeroy family gathers at their beach house for the holiday. Their widowed mother has strong opinions about everything and everyone, her two older sons with their wives and children, and her recently divorced daughter. The …show more content…
Julian and the narrator will never get the opportunity to share their affection with the “black sheep” of their families. Julian in the end finally realizes what he has done was wrong and puts the blame on his mother’s death on himself, while the narrator and the rest of the Pommeroy family just leave it alone and completely forgets about Lawrence. O’Connor and Cheever use their writing to cast literary characters as people with multiple personalities that never truly identify with just one