The Red Convertible Literary Elements

Contemporary, short story

A Native American reservation in North Dakota during the Vietnam War (sometime between 1955 and 1975)

First-person point of view from the perspective of the narrator, Lyman Lamartine, a young Native American, following the story of his brother, Henry.

Informal, reminiscent, wistful, melancholy

Protagonist: Lyman Lamartine, a young Native American, who is attempting to hold on to his youthful innocence in the wake of his brother's change during the Vietnam War. Antagonist: the effects of the war, which irrevocably change Henry's personality and lead to his eventual demise.

Lyman attempts to hold on to his youthful innocence, manifested in the red convertible, as well as that of Henry, his older brother. When he returns from the war, however, Henry is a changed person, and not for the better: the major conflict is Lyman's attempt to "wake up" Henry, bringing him back to their old lifestyle and camaraderie.

Lyman and Henry drink, talk, and wrestle by the river, and Henry throws himself in, never to re-emerge. Lyman sends the red convertible into the river and watches as it sinks to the bottom, alongside Henry in spirit.

The remarkable joy and light-heartedness with which Henry interacts with Susy foreshadows his dramatic change of character to a brooding, unpleasant introvert.

"We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share." (1)

Henry's boots filling with water is an understatement: he drowned.

The narrator alludes to the legend of Red Tomahawk, "the Indian who killed Sitting Bull."

The author uses vibrant, vague imagery when describing the brothers' joyrides in the red convertible to emphasize their pleasurable yet ultimately fleeting nature.

Henry's health situation after the war presents a paradox: there are multiple options for treatment, but he is unable to take either of them. His mother distrusts the regular hospitals, which she believes would just pump Henry full of drugs rather than actually treating him, but she also doesn't trust the only Native American doctor who could help, since he had tried to court her and was jealous of her husbands.

There are two major instances of the brothers taking a ride in the red convertible, but the parallelism between the two serves to heighten their differences. In the first, both boys are young and carefree, but in the second, they are both older and more cynically weathered. They lead to drastically different outcomes.

"And of course it was red, a red Olds." (103)

"Olds" is metonymy: it's short for "Oldsmobile," referring to a specific brand of car.

"I thought of the word repose, because the car wasn't simply stopped, parked, or whatever. That car reposed, calm and gleaming" (104).