After reading “my brother paul” would you characterize it as a story, as an essay, or both? what elements of fiction and nonfiction do you see? cite evidence from the text to support your claims.

“My Brother Paul” can be seen as a combination of an essay and a story. It resembles a personal essay because Dreiser gives his personal reflections on his brother Paul and the various events and incidents that colored his life. It resembles a story in the way that Dreiser develops the characters and plot. Although he’s essentially just describing a few memorable events from his brother’s life, he does so in great detail, adding dialogue and characters such as his sister, their mother, and other people who know Paul, to make the narrative dramatic and engaging. It’s reads like a work of fiction, but it's based on a real person and contains facts and details about Paul’s life.

Dreiser uses many elements of fiction, including first-person narrative, time jumps, and plot development. For example, the story is told from Theodore Dreiser’s point of view, so it's in first person. The author gives his opinions about Paul and his experiences. The story also has a coherent plot that hinges on Paul and the events in his life, which Dreiser brings to life in great detail through characters and dialogue. The story also involves notable narrative qualities such as shifting in time between events.

Dreiser’s adherence to factual details is what makes his work nonfiction. He provides true accounts of all the incidents he describes, and he uses the real names of people and places. Although the story is told from a first-person narrative, Dreiser relies on secondhand accounts to form his story. For example, Dreiser’s sister recounts the incident in which Paul finds a hat on his bed and feels deeply petrified. Theodore Dreiser had to research certain events from his brother’s life to paint an accurate and full picture of his character.

the anwser is went creeping down the river again, across the wide lonely marshes to the sea.

i longed to go with them out into the world to seek my fortune in foreign lands—africa, india, china and peru!

and, dreaming of the lands i had never seen, i'd sit on there, watching till they were out of sight.

each morning i wrote my name

on the dusty cabinet, then crossed

the dining table in script, scrawled

in capitals on the backs of chairs,

practicing signatures like scales

while mother followed squirting

linseed from a burping can