Character Analysis Of John Cheever's 'Goodbye, My Brother'

In John Cheever’s short story “Goodbye, My Brother”, the Pommeroy family struggles to coexist as they come together in their summer home at Laud’s Head. Two of the brothers in particular, Lawrence and the unnamed narrator, constantly feud and tensions mount as the story progresses. Cheever writes allusions to Greek gods, which serve to more deeply explain the Pommeroy family dynamic, the characters’ personalities, and ultimately expose humanity as deeply flawed, but with hope for future.

The narrator opens by introducing the pantheon of characters including the dead father, the widowed mother, and the four siblings. The narrator states “When I remember [our family] members and the coast where they lived and the sea salt that I think is in

The narrator is a secondary school teacher, and although he is “past the age where [he] expects to be made headmaster”, he “respects the work” (466). Although the narrator highly values knowledge, he is still just another human being, and goes way too far to try and understand everything. The narrator is constantly trying to read Lawrence 's mind. Throughout the story, Cheever writes the narrator’s interpretation of Lawrence’s actions, never revealing Lawrence’s actual thoughts. For example, in the scene where the whole family plays backgammon, the narrator spends significant time analyzing Lawrence’s intentions for simply watching the games. He states: “I think that Lawrence felt that in watching out backgammon he was observing the progress of a mordant tragedy in which the money we won and lost served as a symbol for more vital forfeits. It is like Lawrence to try and read significance and finality into every gesture that we make” (476). However, this passage reveals the humanity of the narrator rather than some ability to divine others’ thoughts. The narrator his projecting his own questions and notions about Lawrence and the family onto the situation, leading him to constantly scrutinize Lawrence. This becomes narrator’s downfall, as the narrator succumbs to a very human reaction: he loses his temper with Lawrence and hits