The Red Convertible by Louise Erdich

In Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible” chronicles both the erosion of childhood innocence and the dissolution of a particular sibling relationship. In order to suggest these themes, the narrative foregrounds imagery of movement and stasis, conveying their meanings in complex ways. As such, it’s no surprise that the title of the story itself not only describes the symbolic importance of the convertible to their brotherhood, but also embodies freedom to transcend one’s societal confinements, which, in this case, imparts the literal power of movement. The car gives both of them a kind of agency that lifts them from their economic and social disadvantages as Native Americans. Hence the story establishes the joyful memories of Lyman and Henry’s brotherhood with an extended description of their movement throughout the land, going as far up to Alaska. Not surprisingly, Lyman thinks that making Henry focus on the car, an agent and symbol of freedom, will ultimate save his brother’s soul and regain his spirit. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a false assumption.

While in the sense of the convertible, the ability to move is the essence of freedom, at the same time much imagery of movement in the story symbolizes a kind of indifference in nature, an unstoppable movement incipient in the universe that, conversely, accounts for our powerlessness. Ultimately, for Lyman, he can never retain his brother due to this irresistible movement in nature. This kind of pessimistic sense of loss and inevitability is most clearly expressed in the last line, where Lyman describes the sound of the water as perpetually “going and running and going and running and running” (400), the repetition of words used to convey the sheer relentlessness of nature...

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...s that you see in a rabbit when it freezes and before it will bolt” (108), that his extreme stillness only signifies an emergent jumpy psycho-motility and lack of inner tranquility. Even in his final moments Henry is in a (literal) constant state of movement, fittingly, away from his brother.

In short, one can see that throughout this story, Louise Erdrich applies much use of movement and stillness in her imagery to convey themes concerning the interplay of memory, freedom, loss, and grief. While the red convertible itself symbolizes the movement as a mode of freedom, much movement throughout the story suggests the disinterested and unstoppable movement within nature that symbolizes mortality.

Works Cited

Erdrich, Louise. "The Red Convertible." McMahan, Elizabeth, et al. Literature and the Writing

Process. 9th ed. Boston: Pearson 2011. 394-400. Print