The beginning of the story is a preview to the night Henry died. “We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share. Lyman walks everywhere he goes” (1882). Since Lyman now walks everywhere that means that he no longer has the car. The car was very symbolic to the story, it even gave the brothers a bond. They went everywhere together in that red convertible. They bonded by the trips they took over the states. The car was Henry’s message to Lyman, the message was to let go. Henry wanted Lyman to have the car before Henry killed himself. Lyman Lamartine shows his struggle in trying to rescue Henry from post-traumatic stress disorder after the Vietnam War. Henry has been to war and knows all, but he is now a prisoner of his mind. Most people go through this after war it is called post-traumatic stress disorder. In the story Lyman tries to rescues his brother while also trying to build their relationship to what it used to be. In doing this he shows that he is willing to do anything for his brother, he even tore up the car for Henry. Lyman goes through a life changing experience when Henry dies, because one moment he was there and the next he was gone. The two brothers lived on an Indian Reservation in the nineteen hundreds where they were sheltered. Sheltered from the real world, and especially the Vietnam War. The war changed Henry, it taught him to worry and to never trust anyone around him. Henry watched people die, and knowing that he made it home hurt him. It hurt him because in his mind it should have been him and not his friends. Lyman had a sense that Henry was already dead from the war. But never really knew about how his brother felt, all Lyman knew was that Henry was differ... ... middle of paper ... ...boys are happy. When Henry and Lyman are separated by the war, the car is left alone. When Henry comes back from the war Lyman tries to bond again, but when his efforts fail, he destroys the car. Henry wants to remain close and restore his personality, so he spends hours repairing the car. When he does, they have a glimmer of hope to remember the good times. When Henry drowns, Lyman pushes the car into the river to sink with him, representing that the connection that they once had. Erdrich uses Lyman and Henry to express the awful effects of war on relationships between soldiers and people they care about at home. War causes the change from being a boy to becoming a man. Works Cited Erdrich, Louise. “The Red Convertible.” The American Tradition in Literature Volume II: 10th ed. Eds. George Perkins and Barbara Perkins. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 1882-88. Print.
Two brothers, Lyman and Henry, had very little in common other than their blood. One day they decided to catch a ride to Winnipeg. The car was introduced while these two were doing some sightseeing in the city. They spotted the red Oldsmobile convertible. Lyman, the storyteller, almost made the car a living thing when he said, "There it was, parked, large as life. Really as if it were alive." (461) The brothers used all of the money they had, less some change for gas to get home, to buy the car. The car's significance was the bond that it created between the brothers. The purchase of the vehicle brought these two together with a common interest: the car. Once the bond was formed, the brothers became inseparable, at least for a while. The boys spent the whole summer in the car. They explored new places; met new people and furthered the bond that the car had created. When they returned from their trip, Henry was sent to war. He left the car with Lyman. While Henry was gone, Lyman spent his time pampering and fixing the car. Lyman saw the car as an extension of Henry. Lyman used the car to maintain an emotional bond with his brother who was thousands of miles away.
...l of his Uncle being gone forever, “We’d driven only a few miles when I started to sob”, (299). Culver breaks down after the fact that his uncle has moved on sinks in. Jake was the only closest person he had to a father. Now, without that one father figure in his life, Culver feels lost. In Of Mice and Men, George, after shooting the one person that understood him the most, was left in shock and denial. The two, George and Culver, have lost the half of them that they will never be able to forget.
Ever since the snowball accident Dunny has been preoccupied by worrying over Mary Dempster, and now her son Paul. At the age of sixteen the small town of Deptford becomes too much for Dunny to handle so he decides to drop out of secondary school and join the Army. Dunny needed a change in his life, something to get his mind off Mrs. Dempster and the guilt he felt for her. Leading up to his departure to the War he never really saw much of Mary, mainly because Mr. Dempster told him to stay away, but also because every time him saw her he couldn't hold back feelings of guilt and remorse. This troubled Dunny, much more then he would ever let on. On the other hand, Boy was doing as well as ever, possibly due to the fact that he knew that much of the responsibility of Mary and Paul was securely on the shoulders of Dunny. Dunny knew this as well but it was too late to do much about it except leave.
about the war and his lack of place in his old society. The war becomes
To what lengths would you go for a loved one? Would you destroy something in hopes that it would save them? That 's what Lyman Lamartine did in hopes to fix his PTSD afflicted brother. "The Red Convertible" was written by Louise Erdrich in 1974 and published in 2009 along with several other short stories. Lyman, and Henry, are brothers. The story starts by telling us about how the two brothers acquired a red convertible. Henry ends up being drafted into the Vietnam War, and comes back home suffering from PTSD. One day the pair decided to take a drive to the Red River because Henry wanted to see the high water. Ultimately, the story ends with a cliff-hanger, and we are left wondering what happens to the boys. The symbolic nature of the red convertible will play a key role in this literary analysis, along with underling themes of PTSD and war.
PTSD, also known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, can cause change and bring about pain and stress in many different forms to the families of the victims of PTSD. These changes can be immense and sometimes unbearable. PTSD relates to the characters relationship as a whole after Henry returns from the army and it caused Henry and Lyman’s relationship to crumble. The Red Convertible that was bought in the story is a symbol of their brotherhood. The color red has many different meanings within the story that relates to their relationship.
Henry and Lyman, two brothers from North Dakota, are full of happiness and take adventures in their red convertible before the Vietnam War begins. Lyman always finds ways to accumulate money such as shining shoes and selling bouquets for nuns. Lyman said, “it seemed the more money I made the easier the money came” (358). Soon after those jobs, Lyman also works at a restaurant called the “Joliet Café” and he quickly becomes the owner (359). A devastating tornado strikes the town and destroys the café. Therefore, Lyman receives a substantial sum of money. However, Henry does not seem to have the fortunate luck that Lyman experiences. Henry gains his portion of the money to purchase the convertible from “two checks - a week’s extra pay for being laid off” (359). Together the boys travel to Winnipeg and spend all their money to become the owners of a beautiful red convertible. Henry gains money and buys Lyman’s portion of the red convertible. Lyman and Henry spent the summer traveling around the northern part of the United States. The brothers are carefree and have nothing else to
“Then, before we had thought it over at all, the car belonged to us and our pockets were empty...Some people hang on to details when they travel, but we didn't let them bother us and just lived our everyday lives here to there” (Erdrich 136). Erdrich emphasized that the convertible trips were very significant to the brothers, especially with the phrase “just lived our everyday lives here to there”. This phrase determined that the brothers enjoyed their small road trips with each other where they could just live life and be themselves. When they come back from their trip, unfortunately Stefan has to go to war. He is gone for two years, and when he returns he is different. Marty said that “he thought the old car would bring old Stephen back somehow” (Erdrich 140). So Marty damaged the vehicle in hopes to change Stephen back to the way he was before. In which Marty was successful “That car’s a classic! But you went and ran the piss right out of it” (Erdrich 140). Being away at war made Stephen forget about the vehicle that was so important to him before, but after going through his violent stage he realized that the car did mean a lot to him. His attitude changed when he realized that his brother trashed the vehicle. Erdrich expressed that violence can be changed, specifically with the phrase “but ran the piss right out of it”. Stephen was angry when his brother damaged the car, which lead him to begin caring again. When someone “runs the piss right out of something”, it means that a nice thing went downhill quickly, in which Erdrich determined that the convertible being damaged helped Stephen return back to his old self. Although his brother changed, it didn’t break their brotherly bond. The effect which is clearly displayed in the secondary theme is that a
“The Red Convertible” revolves around Henry, but it is narrated by his younger brother, Lyman. From Lyman’s perspective,
They can cause changes in a loved one that family members are not prepared for or do not want, which can tear a rift between them. However, sometimes, it is up to family members to overlook the changes in their loved one in order to restore their relationship and to restore their loved one to what he or she used to be. This is the struggle that Lyman Lamartine treads with through the course of The Red Convertible. When Lyman’s older brother Henry returns from the Vietnam war he is much changed, and Lyman grapples with these changes as Henry isolates himself from the family and other people, as Lyman says, “They got to leaving him alone most of the time, and I didn’t blame them. It was a fact: Henry was jumpy and mean” (Erdrich 333). Lyman, of course, did not like the changes in Henry, as he stays: “the change was no good” (Erdrich 333). Lyman then reminisces about how he and Henry would sit for hours and talk and Henry would joke and laugh but when he came back from war he was “never comfortable sitting still anywhere but always up and moving around” and “now you couldn’t get him to laugh, or when he did it was more the sound of a man choking” (Erdrich 333). What hit Lyman the hardest was Henry’s lack of interest in the red convertible, the one thing that undeniably connected them. When Henry does not care for the car anymore, it is like he did not care for his relationship with his
The relationship of brothers usually lasts forever, but in Louise Erdrich’s short story “The Red Convertible”, the relationship of the main characters Lyman and Henry takes a turn. Erdrich takes her audience through the experiences these brothers face and how they must come to terms that their relationship has changed. Knowing that it will most likely never be the same both Lyman and Henry try to fix their relationship until eventually one falls because of the experiences he faced in life. While Lyman may think the red convertible will save his and Henry’s relationship, Erdrich makes it clear that it will not through the characterization of the brothers, the plot of the story, and the symbolism she uses to tell her story.
Literature can be based on a myriad of plots. From a realistic fiction story to science fiction and aliens attacking earth, there are a multitude of possibilities. Many times the topic of the literature is based on some part of the author’s life. The short story, “The Red Convertible,” by Louise Erdrich, is a piece realistic fiction that has elements that parallel Erdrich’s life. This story outlines the relationship of two brothers, Lyman and Henry. They have a strong relationship, but after Henry comes back from the Vietnam War things change. “The Red Convertible” is a prime example of how authors write to express their feelings and make sense of life events. Ultimately, Louise Erdrich has perfected the art of writing a fiction story in an autobiographical way by relating events in her life such as her heritage, the death of her eldest son, and the suicide of her husband to those written in “The Red Convertible.”
The story, “A Red Girl’s Reasoning” revolves around the cultural differences between the white North Americans and Native Indians. Author Emily Pauline Johnson writes about how the young Charlie McDonald is abandoned by his Native Indian wife due to his narrow minded beliefs. The story also plays the role of an allegorical representation of the trials and turbulences of cross cultural marriage in the 17th century. Around this time the Natives and Europeans did not accept each other’s cultures and deemed each other’s practices as illegal. The passage chosen highlights how the incompatibility between the two cultures ends up ruining the relationship between Christine and Charlie. This essay will argue that the ideologies and cultural values regarding
Henry and Lyman grew up on the reservation where life was peaceful and harmonious. The two brothers had a very close relationship growing up together and were able to expand their adolescence and simplicity with the purchase of the red convertible. A red convertible was not the typical car you would expect to see on the reservation but Henry and Lyman saw the car and bought it on a whim. They traveled to many different places with the car. The red convertible only let the two brothers enjoy their summer by taking them to many comfortable and peaceful places other than the reservation. One of the places they traveled to was filled with willows. “I remember I laid under those trees and it was comfortable. ...
Henry does the one thing that men ought not. He thinks. In his thoughts he sees past the glory and valor that comes with enlisting and comes to question what could happen to him on the battlefield. He acknowledges the presence of something that the other men dare not: death. The realization that lives are at stake, especially his own, cause Henry to question whether he will have to courage to stay and fight or whether he will run.