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.
Background
Authorial Context: David Chariandy
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses police brutality, murder, and racism.
David Chariandy, author of Brother, is regarded as one of the foremost voices in Canadian literature for his honest writing about identity, race, family, and the ties immigrants have with their communities. Chariandy’s parents immigrated from Trinidad to Canada, where Chariandy was born; he grew up in Scarborough, Ontario, the setting of Brother. This connection to Trinidad is incorporated into Brother through the main characters’ own heritage as Canadian Trinidadians.
Chariandy’s debut novel, Soucouyant, published in 2007, explores the intimate ties an immigrant has with their native country while balancing a commitment to their new country, raising questions about the true meaning of home. Brother has a similar theme, as Michael’s mother works hard to make Canada her home while her Canadian sons struggle to build an identity far away from Trinidad. Furthermore, both novels center on young men who grapple with family relationships, especially with their mothers.
The theme of family is also evident in Chariandy’s book of nonfiction, I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You, published in 2019. In the book, he explains to his daughter the story of her ethnic and cultural heritage, believing that knowledge of where one comes from is important to one’s understanding of self. I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You also analyzes how the history of slavery and migration has led to present-day racism. However, the goal of I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You is inspiration: Chariandy wants his daughter to believe in the value of her multiethnic background and bring about a new, more equal world.
Chariandy’s themes in these two books are also evident in Brother. While Brother explores the tragedy of racism, its tone is one of hope rather than sadness. The key to a better future in Brother is building community, appreciating what one has, and calling on the power of Black history and culture to move forward in identity formation.
Geographical Context: Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
The setting of Brother is Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Chariandy, who grew up in Scarborough, uses his personal experiences to explore the beauty, diversity, and limitations of this setting.
Scarborough is a suburb of Toronto, the most populous city in Canada. A major influx of Caribbean immigrants moving into Scarborough in the 1970s and 1980s significantly impacted Scarborough’s growth from a borough of Toronto to a city of its own. Named after an 18th-century governor’s wife, Scarborough now has new associations to its name. In Brother, Chariandy notes that many people nickname Scarborough “Scarberia,” an allusion to Siberia that both emphasizes the distance between Scarborough and Toronto’s city center and others Scarborough as a city that isn’t actually part of Toronto. Recent social media campaigns have attempted to revitalize Scarborough’s image and free the community of the negative associations of “Scarberia.”
More than half of the population of Scarborough consists of immigrants or the children of immigrants. Scarborough also represents more than eight different religions. These factors account for its diversity, which Chariandy celebrates in Brother. Because many immigrants begin their journeys in Scarborough, much of the population is developing a foundation in Canada. Therefore, Scarborough has the reputation of representing the lower socioeconomic strata of Toronto. Contemporary society often views poorer areas, such as Scarborough, as more prone to crime, but despite its reputation, Scarborough has low rates of crime. This echoes the criticism of society in Brother as being quick to stereotype marginalized groups and people of color as violent and irresponsible.
Scarborough is the native home of many celebrities, such as Mike Myers, The Weeknd, Eric McCormack, and Kardinal Offishall. Chariandy celebrates the vast talent and artistic diversity in Scarborough by highlighting Jelly as a hidden musical talent.
In Brother, Chariandy addresses some of the issues facing Scarborough. However, the novel primarily engages with its setting by honoring the people who have built Scarborough as a diverse and supportive community that defies Canadian stereotypes about immigrants and people of color.
Social Context: Oppression of Marginalized Communities
Many characters in Brother struggle to envision a future for themselves. Chariandy uses the lens of social justice to analyze how society as a whole is responsible for building apathy among youth in marginalized communities and for preventing these communities from reaching their full potential.
In Brother, Francis struggles with a sense that his life will never get better and that he is unworthy of a better life. He develops apathy toward his future because society teaches him that he is incapable, despite the opposite being evident in the text. Furthermore, Francis is accustomed to abandonment: His father abandons him twice, thus inadvertently teaching Francis that running away is one way of dealing with conflict. As tension grows between Francis and his mother, he also leaves the home, replicating the cycle of his father’s alienation from the family. Francis’s father moved to Scarborough with big dreams about what life would be like in Canada. After discovering that Canadian society could be racist and xenophobic, Francis’s father gave up on his dreams, which included his family. By replicating the cycles of his father’s abandonment, Francis inherits the disappointments of his parents that were caused by racist and xenophobic structures. Chariandy makes it clear that if society were more welcoming of young Black men like Francis—and his father—Francis would have been encouraged to meet his full potential.
Francis also sees a lack of opportunity in the world for other people from Scarborough. For example, he sees the potential of Jelly’s talent but is discouraged when Jelly’s audition for rap producers is overlooked. To Francis, this is evidence that even the most talented among them will not be able to escape the bonds of poverty and make it out of Scarborough. While Aisha earns a scholarship, which leads to an education and employment, she is depicted as a rarity in Scarborough. Michael, for instance, performs just as well in school, but he doesn’t leave. A major social issue explored in this novel is therefore the lack of options and opportunities that young people have in modern nations like Canada. A lack of opportunity constructs feelings of inferiority in people in marginalized communities, like Francis, who internalize society’s stereotypes.
A significant event in the novel is that Francis is shot and killed by officers in an incident of police brutality. Francis’s shooting happens when Francis is emotional because the police have once again targeted his friends in their safe space. Francis’s shooting is deemed lawful, but readers are aware that his shooting is a murder that could have been avoided. While the shooting of unarmed Black men in Toronto is statistically less than that of the United States, Toronto still experiences police shootings that are unjustified and reveal an escalation of violence against Black Canadians. Recent data collected about police activity in Toronto by the Ontario Human Rights Commission show that Black people and people of other racialized groups are more routinely targeted for searches. Black people make up roughly 9% of Toronto’s population yet comprise over 32% of police activity such as arrests and ticketing (“A Disparate Impact: Second Interim Report on the Inquiry Into Racial Profiling and Racial Discrimination of Black Persons by the Toronto Police Service.” Ontario Human Rights Commission, 10 Aug. 2020). These racial disparities are documented by Chariandy in Brother.
