Good Example Of Main Themes Essay

Analysis of the story “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich

The biography and work of Louise Erdrich (born in 1954) can also serve as a shining example of the modern American multicultural literature. L. Erdrich, whose ancestors were among the American Indians Chippewa, the Germans and the French, is the author of several novels, collections of short stories and poems, in which she describes the life of Chippewa in the Midwest for twenty years. The novel Love Medicine (1984) combines 14 stories told by different people - representatives of the union of two families of Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe. The “life” of the characters, who have appeared for the first time in this novel by L. Erdrich, continues in the following works of the writer. Her story The Red Convertible is a vivid example of the complex relationships with other indigenous peoples living in America, the people’s struggle for cultural identity in mixed European-American culture. This story exposes the racial inequality during the Vietnam War, and cites the example of a desperate sacrifice in honor of homeland.
Basically, The Red Convertible is the 9th chapter of the novel “Love Medicine” that dwells on the brothers Lyman and Henry Lamartine. Both boys are of Indian origin and live in the reservation. One day they decide to buy a red convertible to ride with ease. Two brothers enjoy their free life, but when they come back home after the summer holidays, they discover that Henry was drafted.

The story tells about the brothers’ life and emotions during the period of the Vietnam War, but it touches a number of various themes. Basically, Erdrich starts this chapter in a cheerful and freely way, but there is an implicit of foreknowledge at the very beginning. The reader feels the break not when Henry, the older brother, was taken prisoner during his military service, but from the very beginning: “We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share” (Erdrich, 103). This phrase serves as a forecast of the ending. However, when he comes back from the war, Lyman sees that his brother has changed completely: “But he was quiet, so quiet, and never comfortable sitting still anywhere but always up and moving around” (Erdrich, 309). The war destroyed him, and the bright and young man has become a gloomy and implicit war sacrifice. For every Indian, a was is a way to become a real man, to strengthen his faith and spirit. Henry wants to fight on the front of his homeland in honor of his ancestors. The author depicts the inhuman “use” of Indians because of their cultural background and their life credo of a warrior.
However, Lyman tries to cheer his brother by wrecking the convertible in order to vivify his brother’s activity and to rehabilitate his psychological mood. The red convertible serves as a symbol of an attempt to retain the previous life. But unfortunately, his attempt to fix his brother was not such successful. Henry dies when Lyman takes him to the river. The car becomes not only a reminder for Lyman but also a burden. It depicts their relationship – the strong brothers’ bond at the beginning, the wreck in the middle of the story, and the tragedy of loss at the end. The car is a metaphor – it is wrecked, and it identifies the wreck in the relations: “I did a number on its underside. Whacked it up. Bent the tail pipe double” (Erdrich, 310). The fact that the car was convertible tells the reader about the previous life of Henry. He was free and could feel the life despite any kind of weather or the landscape. The red color was nonrandom too. The red is a color of energy and passion, the zest for life. Henry is like the red color – full of life passion at the beginning, colored with blood in the middle of the story; his death is represented with the red color of Lyman’s extreme painful fear of loss. The car dies with Henry.
Basically, the whole novel is penetrated with the theme of the Indian reservation life. Their treatment was depicted with the help of landscape: “By the time I was done with the car it looked worse than any typical Indian car that has been driven all its life on reservation roads, which they always say are like government promises – full of holes” (Erdrich, 310). The fact that the story is presented by the character’s speech in the first person makes it more authentic and plausible. The reader sees the picture of the reservation life from the viewpoint of its inhabitants.
The reader can see the obvious juxtaposition of the happy beginning and the tragic ending. The anguish expresses and depicts the mood of a sacrifice and the vivid inequality that is based only on the racial bias. The previous chapter of the novel describes Henry as a vivacious young man, and his transformation throughout the text becomes more emphasized: “But he was such a loner now that I didn’t know how to take it” (Erdrich, 311).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it should be said that Louise Erdrich is a master of depicting people’s struggle for better life. “The Red Convertible” converts the gloomy history of the Indian reservations into a vivid life story of two brothers Lyman and Henry. The authors touches various theme in her story, such as the complex relationship between Indigenous Americans and the government that uses their cultural valuable. Moreover, Erdrich shows the reader the truth world of Indians in reservations without an unnecessary embellishment.

Works cited

Erdrich, Louise. “Love Medicine: a novel.” New York: Holt, 2015