Mother's Younger Brother Character Analysis

In the beginning of the novel, Mother’s Younger Brother lived in the respectability of the middle class. However, exhibiting many sullen and estranged sensibilities, he soon became disinterested in his life because of the limitations set upon him by the family, mainly Father.
Much like his name implies, he is seen as someone who follows in the footsteps or is shadowed by the elder family member. As soon as father leaves on his exhibition to Alaska, Mother’s Younger Brother is taxed with taking up the mantle of the family business while he is away. He is given more obligation to care for the family however, he is not asked, he is told to do so without much regard for his own desires. “Father shook the young man’s hand. He had given him a raise …show more content…
This criminalistic self is, in reality, Mother’s Younger Brother’s attempt at understanding how he can incite change not just through his family but how he cause it throughout the world around him. Moreover, by going to the extremes of terrorism Mother’s Younger Brother is trying to cause change as quickly as he can because he feels so pressured to do so by his unhappiness. He still does not understand how to cause it healthily even after speaking to Emma Goldman. When Mother’s younger Brother meets with Emma Goldman she expresses her disgust in the way in which he is living after not being able to stay with Evelyn. She explains to Mother’s Younger Brother that he cannot be with Evelyn because they come from two different social classes and tells him that he was not truly interested in her looks alone but what he really sought after was her image as an object of change by calling him “my pagan”. (131) This allows for the understanding to be established that Mother’s Younger Brother is invested in seeing after images that inspire or may cause change. As their conversation progresses Goldman looks upon Mother’s Younger Brother and compares him to Leon Czolgosz, the assassinator of President William Mckinley, which causes him to imagine himself as Czolgosz himself “Younger Brother saw himself standing in line to shake the hand of William Mckinley. A handkerchief was wrapped around his hand. In the handkerchief was a gun”. (172) Imagining himself as the assassin marks his transition from the respectable middle class into his criminal self. This is furthered by his borrowing of literature from Goldman which one could imagine as anarchist philosophy. It is important to note, however, that Goldman does not cause his transition from his respectable position as a middle-class American into his terroristic