Literary Analysis: "The Red Convertible"

When reading literature we often attempt to use particular threads of thought or lenses of critique to gain entry into the implied historic or legendary nature of literature. To accurately process a tale in the light in which it is presented, we have to consider the text from multiple viewpoints. We must take into consideration intentional and affective fallacies and the socioeconomic circumstances of the presenter/author/narrator. We also have to consider how our personal experience creates bias by placing the elements of the story into the web of relationships that we use to interpret the external world. There also is the need to factor in other external pressures, from societal norms, cultural ideals, and psychological themes, and how they impress themselves upon us from the outside in.

All of these factors are at play in the relations between the objects within a text, creating a form of reality with its own historic and mythic properties. Characters have their own histories and structures, expressed or not, and their perception in the fictional world they reside exerts influence outward to the reader of literature, or the viewer of art. This influence can create a sense of immersive reality that renders the reading experience to be mythic truth, based in facts but not emotion or direct perception, a somewhat distanced portrayal of events. However it can also be an expression of perceptive truth, events are experienced much they would be in real life – confusing and disjointed. To look into these narrative elements of text, I will use examples from “The Red Convertible” by Lois Erdrich to demonstrate how Lyman’s narration style is representative of psychoanalytic concepts, showing how he deals with the situations presented...

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...hat removes the emotional wave of experience. And with all of the other examples of repression and displacement, as well as selective memory, one can see that perhaps “The Red Convertible” itself is a representation of how we often place our experiences into mythical status as a way to repress the bad portions of experience. That even the grotesque sublime that occurs in life can be stripped to its core and retold in a way that makes it appealing, and thus controllable, as opposed to the unstable reality that actually surrounds and influences us.

Works Cited

Erdrich, Louise. The Red Convertible. 1984. eFictions. Ed. Joseph F. Trimmer, C. Wade Jennings, and Annette Patterson. Cambridge: Heinle & Heinle, 2004. 191-206. Print.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.