The Red Convertible Symbolism

A detailed Summary of The Red Convertible Symbolism

Literary critic Marvin Magalaner has stated that in Louise Erdrich's

Love Medicine, "water is the all-pervasive symbolic link with the past

[...] and with the natural environment," whereas "the unnatural

present is epitomized by the automobile" (101). But in the chapter of

Love Medicine entitled "The Red Convertible"--a chapter often

anthologized separately as a short story--just the opposite is the

case: The automobile is associated with a more natural state of

affairs--farther in the past, whereas water is associated with

unnatural times much closer to the present. The chapter is organized

around its closing paragraph, in which a red convertible is swallowed

up by the Red River. This closing image symbolically restates what has

happened to Henry Lamartine, both individually and in his relationship

Throughout the chapter, Erdrich associates the red convertible with

Henry's state of mind. The first time the convertible is mentioned, it

is personified. Lyman, the story's narrator, says that when he and

Henry first saw the car, it looked "really is if it was alive" (144).

But the car isn't portrayed as having merely human traits; it is

portrayed as having what at first are Henry's traits. L

Unable to bear it any longer, Henry leaps into the river. Overwhelmed

But we sense that Henry's repairs are only superficial, a sense that

the car is underwater (154). And just as they did Henry, the surging

his chair gripping the armrests with all his might, as if the chair

because the snow is melting with the springtime and "he want[s] to see

waters overwhelm the convertible, shorting the wires and bringing

sharp like a hatchet, like the nose on Red Tomahawk" (147); his

television so upsets him that once while watching, he bites through

Approximate Word count = 1232
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous

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