The Red Convertible Character Analysis

“A Sibling Bond Can Never Be Broken” In “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich the two main characters Lyman and Henry are brothers that have an amazing relationship with one another. In the beginning of the story Erdrich writes about how Lyman and Henry bought a beautiful red convertible; and together they went on plenty of road trips and bonded over the car. On the other hand, the two siblings in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” don’t have that same sibling bond. The siblings in “Everyday Use”, Maggie and Dee, are complete opposites. Dee is extremely vain, snobbish, and outspoken while Maggie is coy, insecure, and more down to Earth.

In effect, Maggie is shy and tends to hide herself in embarrassment of the scars she possesses. Her mother even compares her walk to that of a “lame animal”. In the end of the story, while Dee is trying to take the quilts her mother had promised her, she did nothing. She sat and listened and even offered to let Dee take them. She values the quilts greatly, but felt inferior to Dee because of her low self-esteem and felt unworthy of the quilts.

Maggie has been promised the quilts, but does not think that they are worth fighting for because she knows she can remember her grandma without them. Mama finally stands up to Dee, and tells her that she promised Maggie the quilts so she could not have them. The story is told in first person point of view through the eyes of Mama.... ... middle of paper ... ...acters through Mama so that each daughter is portrayed in an accurate way. Using the symbol of the quilts deepens the characterization of the daughters because it shows how each character feels about her family and it’s history. Dee is characterized as a shallow person who will go with any trend that comes about while Maggie comes across as a reserved and quiet girl.

Aunt Alexandra has strict and traditional ideas of how society works and the role for a Southern woman within it, which she tries to enforce upon Scout at the beginning to this novel. ‘When I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants.’ Scout immediately takes a dislike to Aunt Alexandra when she criticises her about her overalls. Aunt Alexandra fits in well with the neighbours in Maycomb, but not with the children, as she demands different standards of behaviour from what they are used to. Aunt Alexandra does create an impact during her stay when trying to influence the children during their crucial years of growing up. Atticus is worried that he is not doing his best for his children and is torn between being courteous to his sister and raising Jem and Scout as he sees fit.

Dee explains that the other name did not suit her. Now even though Mother reluctantly goes along with this new name, it is obvious that she is not used to changing names, especially if it is one of great family importance. Another character that that has a hard time changing along with Mother is Maggie. When Mother sent Dee to a good school where she could get a very good education, Dee used to come back and try to teach her lowly, uneducated family members. Maggie and her Mother were not used to this, and they were happy with the education that they had.

In short story, “The Red Convertible” the different types of theme play a huge role in bringing the story together. The story is told from one of the brother’s, Lyman Lamartine, point of view about how he and his brother, Henry had partial ownership in a red convertible Oldsmobile car. The red convertible Oldsmobile car plays an important role as it represents the centralize point of the two brother’s relationship throughout the whole story. Louise Erdrich’s different themes help understand the relationship of Lyman and Henry through the red convertible Oldsmobile. Although, the red Oldsmobile is the central point of the story, hence the title of the story, the different themes of brotherhood/family, war, and neglect support the Oldsmobile becoming the central point and bringing the story together.

Some of these discussions are nothing more than good-natured kidding which helps pass the time during long vacation trips in the family car. Two contrasting members of my family are my brother and my father. I understand both of them fairly well, but their attempts to understand each other are less successful. My father and my older brother sometimes assume diametrically different viewpoints. My brother is artistic and creative while my father is pragmatic and technically minded.

“The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich, is a story of two Native American brothers whom share a deep bond and very close relationship before circumstances start falling apart; throughout the story, the reader learns about Henry’s psychological state. As the narrator, Lyman, informs the reader, they owned a car for the first time “We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share.” (358) is when a magnificent brotherly can be seen connection. But the time passed by, and their link was breaking apart, because a war situation. Although Henry and Lyman are the main characters, Lyman invests most of the time describing how he feels of Henry’s life before and after he went to war and how the relationship was deteriorating. Henry and Lyman are two brothers which developed a nicely bond whey got the red convertible.

Feeling ashamed of her African culture and family, Dee wishes that her mother and sister look different and that her home would be nicer. Mama always knew how Dee felt about her, “My daughter would want me to be a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. But that is a mistake” (par. 6). Dee’s judgmental nature has affected her mother’s self-view.

Walker uses this point of view to her advantage, because while the reader is familiar with Wangero's somewhat stereotypical "blacksploitive" personality, this aspect of her personality remains completely foreign to her mother, the narrator, who describes it with an innocent wonder. In the beginning of the story the mother speaks of Wangero's actions in the past. Even then she displayed an arrogance that isolated her mother and younger sister, but the mother was too busy being proud of her daughter's achievements to notice. She says, "At sixteen [Dee] had a style of her own, and she knew what style was. She used to read to us, without pity.