Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses police brutality, murder, and racism.

Grief is a motif in Brother that helps develop the overall mood of sorrowfulness throughout the novel. Ruth and Michael both experience prolonged grief over Francis’s death. Ruth is diagnosed with complicated grief, which results in lapses of memory and hallucinations. Michael’s grief results in stagnation and isolation as he focuses on caring for his mother, claiming to protect her but also protecting himself. However, their specific grief expands to encompass grief about their circumstances, Michael’s lack of identity, and life’s promises being unfulfilled. Francis’s death represents the culmination of the racism, lack of compassion, institutionalized apathy, and toxic stereotypes of the society the boys inhabit. Therefore, mourning Francis’s loss is also mourning all these societal factors that contributed to Francis’s death. Michael and his mother’s character arcs are defined by striving to move through the grief they have been unable to reconcile.

Racism is a motif that informs the themes, plot, and character development in Brother. Racism is an antagonistic force against Francis and Michael, as the novel details the ways both individual and institutionalized racism impacts their educations, opportunities, and, ultimately, their abilities to stay alive.