The Red Convertible
Many Hidden Messages in The Red Convertible
The short story by Louise Erdrich “The Red Convertible” contains so many symbols that upon first reading it you might miss them. By studying a little about the beliefs of the Chippewa people though you are able to pull a few of the symbols out of the story. At first glance you see that it is a story about the relationship between the two main characters who are brothers living on a reservation in North Dakota. The brothers’ names are Henry and Lyman. Lyman says something odd in only the first paragraph "I owned that car along with my brother Henry Junior. We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share”(455). This showed us that there is something we don’t know about which will be explained later.
Things start off well for the boys as we hear of Lyman’s good luck and hard work. He is the owner of a restaurant at a very young age and then a disaster happens and it is blown over in a tornado. We are told of the differences in the two brothers “Henry was the stronger (physically) brother, the one built like a brick outhouse was never lucky enough to have anything positive to come from his strengths”(458). Henry embodies the negative color associations from the brick house or red house and in many ways throughout the story he is associated with the color red. From the beginning, we see Lyman as the lucky one, the one who “could always make money. I had a touch for it"(456). He was filled with passion for money and was characteristically strong meaning that he kept going even after something would get in his way like the disaster with his restaurant.
The way Lyman speaks of his luck it made me believe that he must have some positive energy flowing through him. Why else would he have been "the only kid they let in the American Legion Hall"(456)? But as Lyman tells us he has good luck because he got insurance money to replace his restaurant we wonder why doesn’t he do that. Instead of using the money to rebuild on an impulse he and his brother purchase a red...