Essay on Compare and Contrast of Two Stories.

While they were on the road where Lyman said could have been anywhere, they encounter a girl named Susy who needed a ride to her home in Alaska. Once they got there, Henry and Lyman were welcomed with opened arms. "We got up there and never wanted to leave... Her family really took to us. They fed us and put us up" (Erdrich 2). Henry seemed to be liked in all the interactions he has with other people. His social skills were great, and he acted no different from other normal people, so he had no reasons to be considered an outsider. His personality was playful and careless, as evident from all the driving around without knowing where they were going. Henry plays around with Susy and seemed to have formed a good relationship with her very quickly. She even seemed bummed out when Henry and Lyman had to leave. Susy states "I told her it was time for us to go. She stood up on a chair. 'You never seen my hair'" (Erdrich 3). Henry was a very easy guy to get along with we don't

The car was in good shape before Henry went off and joined the Marines but Lyman wanted it in perfect condition for when his brother arrived at home. The red convertible to Lyman is everything that he wants his relationship with his brother to be once he returns. Lyman wants everything to go back to the way things were like the summer before Henry left. When Henry finally does arrive at home, however, Lyman describes him as being "very different" and "jumpy and mean"(367). Henry no longer seems to have any interest in the car or in Lyman any longer. In desperation, to retrieve his old brother, Lyman goes out one night when Henry had gone out and "did a number" on the red convertible(367). This desperate act of Lyman is in order to try to bring the brothers together. Lyman feels that since they were connected through the red convertible in the past that it would bring them together now. When Henry sees the car messed up he becomes upset and instead of bringing the brothers together Henry becomes fanatically obsessed with fixing the red convertible. This event in the story shows how the war has changed their relationship from close knit to distant. However, once Henry gets the car fixed up he asks Lyman to go for a drive once again showing how the car and their relationship are hand in hand. The red convertible continues to bring the brothers together even in the worst of times.

Ambrose Bierce’s short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and the film version directed by Robert Enrico share some similarities but mostly the differences between the two works. Both the short story and film can be compared and contrasted in relation to the emotion, detail and perspective. One is at an advantage, reading the short story before seeing the film because the story gives a better idea of what is happening and who the protagonist really is. In other words, the short story helps in providing the reader with key details that are not mentioned in the film.

In the end, the brothers appear to have a dispute over the car because Henry again wants Lyman to have it. Henry tells Lyman to take good care of it. Henry then walks into the river and drowns. Lyman unsuccessfully attempts to rescue Henry. He lets the car go into the river to be with his brother.

The car is one of the most important elements that develops and supports the theme brotherhood. The car is a symbol that is meant to show Lyman and Henry’s close bond, and it holds the key to their definitive separation. The red convertible is also a symbol of success, and a connection to the white world for both Henry and Lyman “ I was

Looking at the plot of the story, one can see that the story deals with a psychological conflict. Before Henry had left for the Vietnam War he and Lyman had a close relationship and since coming back he changed significantly because of what he saw and experienced. Lyman explains, “Once I was in the room watching TV with Henry and I heard his teeth click at something. I looked over and he’d bitten through his lip. Blood was going down his chin” (Erdrich 129). This example shows how Henry is dealing with the post war stress and how he cannot get what he went through out of his head. As he sits and watches the replaying war videos, he is unable to get past that he can live again and go back to the way things were because psychologically he is still at war and fighting.

Lyman soon realized he was wrong. The war had torn Henry to the point that he would stare lifelessly at a television screen for hours on end. He had not said more than a few words to Lyman for some time. Angered, Lyman purposefully damages the red convertible to get the attention of his brother. The damaging of the car represents the anger felt by Lyman that the relationship with his brother had been destroyed by the war. By destroying the car, Lyman is metaphorically changing the condition of the red convertible to match that of their brotherly bond. “Now I don’t even know if I can get it to start again, let alone get it anywhere near its old condition.” (Erdrich 328) Henry states about the car, symbolizing his feelings towards their relationship.

Henry returns from the war damaged not unlike the car after Lyman tries to destroy it. The relation ship between the brothers will never return to its previous state just as the car will never be the same. The car now comes to signify the change in the brother’s relationship. When Henry drowns himself in the river, Lyman lets the car go with them. Henry knows life will never be the same and neither will his feelings about the car. The car will now only trigger the raw emotions of his brother’s transformation and his death, instead of the carefree life he once had with a close brother. The car comes to symbolize death and the death of the close relationship between the to brothers. When Lyman lets go of the car, he is also letting go of his innocence.

There was no actual evident mention of their American part of lifestyle until this point of their life, dealing with Henry after war. In the end, the reader can see that red convertible is a bigger representation of Henry and his individual changes after the Vietnam than anything else. It is his changes that affect his whole family and thus his strong relationship with his brother and thus why the car also counterparts their brotherly relationship. Further as the red convertible re-introduces itself throughout the story, it is the first and foremost object that shows the lifestyle of Henry and Lyman as Chippewa and American members of society.

Brent Staples of “Just Walk On By”, Judith Ortiz Cofer of “The Myth of the Latin Woman”, and Alice Walker of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” had discovered their personal/cultural knowledge and identity through their experiences. They might have different experiences in different situation or incident it has the same concept. Brent Staples and Judith Cofer had similarly uncovered how they are being alienated especially in their foreign place. They both had experienced to be mistaken as somebody else. Brent Staples was once mistaken for a burglar in a magazine company and a mugger in a jewelry store. Cofer was also mistaken as a waitress by an old woman while she was holding her notebook which an old woman thought a menu

After the Vietnam War, Henry was crazy and unstable. For instance, when Henry was watching television and he bit through his lip with blood pouring everywhere (977). The blood was getting on his bread every time he took a bite, but because of his lost ability to think straight Henry doesn’t even flinch as blood pours everywhere. Also, at the end of the story Henry snaps on his brother Lyman. He punches Lyman, which leads to a fight ended by the laughing of Henry (980). During the fight with Lyman, the extent of Henry’s mental changed, to turn on a family member and physically strike him. Henry illustrates how crazy he is when he jumps in to the river all of the sudden to “cool off”(981). This action by Henry ends his craziness and his life.

Both Erdrich’s, “The Red Convertible”, and O'Brien's, “The Things They Carried” reflect the effects of psychological trauma left by war; specifically, the Vietnam War. In Erdrich’s piece, she uses the red convertible as a metaphor for Henry. The fact that the two brothers purchased the convertible together is a serves to symbolize their bond. Yet, when Henry returns from his tenure as a soldier, his mental health has deteriorated into an apparently depressive state. I believe that Lyman’s act of wrecking the car represents how the war has devastated Henry’s emotional state. In Henry’s attempt to restore the car, he is indirectly trying to mend himself. Indeed we see that in his effort to do so, he exhibits signs indicative of his previous

In Karen’s ‘The Red Convertible,’ the story is narrated by Lyman Lamartine who is the younger brother of Henry Junior who had just got back from Vietnam after the war was over. The whole story is narrated in a flashback unlike Tim’s ‘The Things They Carried’ where the story moves back and forth in time. For example when the author describes the things that the soldiers carried in the very beginning of the story, he mentions Ted Lavender carrying six or seven ounces of premium dope until he was shot. Karen emphasizes more on the relationship between brothers and compares the state of mind in which they were before and after the war. The younger brother Lyman hadn’t changed much where as the elder brother Henry was completely a different person after he got back from Vietnam.

“The Red Convertible” demonstrates the cause and effect of past memories with present experiences, particularly the effect of war. The memories shared between the brothers before Henry’s draft begins with the purchase of a red convertible. Both of the brothers equally purchased the red convertible with their earned income. The red convertible personified the brother’s

Other stories, perceived as unrealistic, often are posited so because they contain elements we do not see in the real world; metaphoric fantasy, symbolism, abstractness. These concepts are all based on our own filters of perception – we discern what is historically accurate and what is legend, or myth, based on our position in culture and the lenses which we view ourselves. In “The Red Convertible”, we can see these concepts at play – Lyman, narrating the story of the relationship with his brother Henry, tells a story that flows very effortlessly. Things that happen around him seem to brush off of him, as if they are no big deal.