Louise Erdrich’s “red Convertible”

The Helpless Love

In Louise Erdrich’s “Red Convertible”, the author shows the reader Lyman’s memory of his brother Henry. The theme of the story is that love is powerful but helpless because it can’t stop many things, for example death. Death brings release and peace to the suicide but helplessness and sadness to people who love them. Erdrich uses three elements to illustrate the theme: foreshadowing, symbolism and setting.

The beginning part of the story is a foreshadow of the ending, serving an indirect expression and it is matched with the ending which together help to bring out the theme and make readers accept Lyman’s feeling more naturally. “We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share. Now Henry owns the whole car, and his youngest brother Lyman, Lyman walks everywhere he goes” (331). The foreshadowing serves an indirect way of saying death. The author picks up Henry’s boots to foreshadow his death, which is an indirect way to avoid saying the word “died”. Readers start questioning: what’s going on after Henry’s boots are filled with water? With a question prepared in readers’ mind, the answer is accepted more naturally.

The author uses the ownership of the red convertible as another tool to indicate Henry’s dead as well. The bothers own the red convertible together but end in a result that Henry is the only owner. Readers can start guessing that the red convertible is a significant thing between Lyman and Henry. In addition, by matching the ending and the foreshadowing, readers are brought into Lyman’s feeling by the author. “‘My boots are filling’ he says” (336), the author writes the word out of Henry’s mouth at the end. Readers read words from Lyman at the beginning as a foreshadowing and the same words from Henry at the end of the story. The element of foreshadowing matches not only the ending but also the sad fact that Lyman is now the only person who remembers all the memories between Henry and him.

There are many symbols among the story that stand out to demonstrate the theme. For example, the color TV tube Lyman bought for his family. Lyman mentions “I’d bought a color TV set for my mom and the rest of us while Henry was away’ (333). The color TV tube represents Lyman’s love and effort to bring his brother back. On the other hand, Henry was totally changed by the war, just like the black-and-white picture showing on the TV. Henry was surrounded by Lyman’s love and effort, but he could not be changed and brought back. “He sat in front of it. Watching it. And that was the only time he was completely still” (333). The author uses the TV tube as a