The short story “The Red Convertible” was written by Louise Erdrich and it is about two brothers and their relationship. The two brothers have a great relationship and they do everything together which includes buying the car, a red convertible which is the symbol of youth, freedom, fun and normal life. The story is told from the perspective of the younger brother, Lyman, and it is about the older brother, Henry, who comes back from Vietnam after having been in war for three years. He develops PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder which makes him take his life in the end when he can no longer bear existence.
The relationship between the two brothers is great before Vietnam and they go everywhere together. The brothers are Indians and they are having fun in life by using every opportunity to spend a great day in nature. After they buy the red convertible, they are unstoppable, ready to go anywhere throughout America. When they go to Alaska to drive Susy there, they decide to stay there for some time living in a tent. People grow fond of them: “Her family really took to us. They fed us and put us up. We had our own tent to live in by their house, and the kids would be in and out of there all day and night” (Erdrich 308). They were traveling a lot, but this ended once they got home and Henry found out that he was drafted: “We got home just in time, it turned out for the army to remember Henry had signed up to join in” (Erdrich 308). On the other hand, Lyman had more luck in life and he knew he would not be drafted which is why he was not afraid for his own life.
After the war, Henry came changed as if he became another person while in the war. He was tense, silent and aggressive and nothing could be done to help him or relieve his pain. He would not even talk much about anything which is what made his family worried. Lyman was feeling the exact symptoms Henry was feeling and that was because of their relationship as brothers. However, Lyman could not help his older brother because he was suffering from a severe case of PTSD from which he never recovered. Lyman tried to ruin the car so that his brother would engage himself in restoring it and this helped to some extent. There were numerous unpleasant situations related to the TV set which was in color. “He sat in front of it, watching it, and that was the only time he was completely still. But it was the kind of stillness that you see in a rabbit when it freezes before it will bolt” (Erdrich 309). There was nothing anybody could do to help Henry and he could not even help himself. The best idea Lyman could have thought of was to smash the car so that Henry would be preoccupied fixing it. This helped a little to ease his pain which was both mental and physical. Henry became lonely, hopeless, helpless and isolated: “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 310). Nobody said anything about this and the family had dinner in spite of this incident. It was for the better to be quite than to make the situation worse because nobody knew how to help Henry at this point since he was going through the situation which was unfamiliar to people who did not go to war. He suffered a lot in Vietnam which made him a different person and changed him in a negative way because his mental health declined.
There are many causes for the occurrence of PTSD, but they are mostly related to war and the escalation of this mental disorder happened after the war in Vietnam. “Combat exposure, prewar vulnerability, and harming civilians have additive effects on risk and long-term course of posttraumatic stress disorder among Vietnam vets” (Levine 15). PTSD is the way in which people react to situations which are in disagreement with human nature. The symptoms occur as a delayed response to a stressful situation or to any other shorter or longer exposure to the event of a life-threatening and catastrophic situation which would put any person in distress. There are also factors which can make a person prone to developing PTSD and these include personal characteristics such as having a compulsive disorder and being asthenic. Other reasons for developing PTSD may include prior neurotic illnesses, but these are not necessary for the explanation of the occurrence of PTSD. Typical characteristics of PTSD include the episodes of reliving the trauma in a vivid memory which comes in flashbacks, in dreams or nightmares. There is the feeling of being numb and the patient often avoids activities and situations which could make them remember about the trauma. There is usually a state of the tense vegetative nervous system which is followed by a state of constant fear and insomnia. Anxiety and depression are the primary symptoms which is why it is possible for people suffering from PTSD to commit suicides. The beginning of this state is followed by a trauma with a latent period which lasts from a few weeks to a few months. The illness develops in a fluctuating manner and a recovery may be expected in the majority of patients. However, some patients develop severe cases of PTSD which last for a few years with the eventual shift into a permanent change of personality. PTSD appeared for the first time under this name in 1980 in the California Psychiatric Association and it found its place in the ICD-10 classification. A similar syndrome was also described during the American Civil war under the name “irritable heart”. After the WW I there was a shock from grenades and war neurosis and after the WW II it was described as the symptom of the survivors of the Holocaust. However, PTSD got its name after the war in Vietnam. PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder because it happens as a result of stress and occurs after the traumatic event has passed, but has left great consequences on the human psyche.
Henry had these symptoms because he was irritable all the time and he could not help feeling at unease all the time. He even made involuntary gestures such as biting his lip. The family was talking about taking Henry to see a doctor, but there were no doctors on the premised of the reservation. “We were afraid that if we brought Henry to a regular hospital they would keep him” (Erdrich 310). Therefore, the mother and Lyman treated Henry as best as they possibly could, but there was no help which could be offered to him at the time. He needed psychiatric help with the aid of medicines and he did not go to the hospital to seek for it. “Perhaps the most clinically interesting finding was that patients with borderline personality disorder and PTSD have significantly more non-suicidal acts than patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder alone” (Eichelman 1152). Therefore, Henry probably suffered from both of these disorders since he decided to kill himself in the end. Moreover, he did it in order to relive himself from the tensions he had in life which he could not bear anymore. PTSD is formed as a postponed or a prolonged reaction to the stressful event of a shorter or longer duration which is extremely threatening or catastrophic in nature. The disorder develops in the period of several weeks up to six months after the traumatic event. Typical symptoms consist of episodes of the reliving of the traumatic event and there is also emotional numbness as well as isolation and retreat inside oneself. The person suffering from PTSD does not react to the events which surround them and they avoid being in certain locations, around certain people, doing activities and being in the situation which would remind them of the trauma and make them afraid. This must have happened to Henry when he was watching TV program. The symptoms could also be dramatic acute attacks of fear panic which may be provoked by the situations which remind the people of the traumatic events they went through which caused the disorder. The most usual symptoms are vegetative excitation, constant irritation which does not have to be provoked and insomnia. Anxiety and depression are joined with the other symptoms which may include excessive consummation of alcohol and drug abuse.
Henry tries to escape from reality by fixing the car which Lyman destroyed on purpose to get his out of the house. Lyman says: “After that I thought he’d freeze himself to death working on that car. He was out there all day, and at night he rigged up a little lamp, ran a cord out the window, and had himself some light to see by while he worked” (Erdrich 311). It was evident that Henry became to feel better, but he did not begin to talk more than usual and there was not much communication between Henry and his brother. Henry was still isolated and he showed no affection towards anybody which could also be seen in the photograph of the two brothers. Eventually, Lyman began to feel the physical symptoms which Henry was feeling and he became disturbed by their photograph. At first he felt close to Henry because he put the photograph on the wall, but as Henry’s situation got worse Lyman felt bad because of the photograph and when his friend came by, they took it away. “We put the picture in a brown bag, folded the bag over and over tightly, then put it way back in a closet” (Erdrich 312). This ritual had a meaning and it suggested that Henry’s life was going to end soon which is exactly what happened because Henry could no longer bear his situation and Lyman felt this.
The story finally came to an end when the two brothers decided to go and have fun in nature by the water. “We started off, east, toward Pembina and the Red River because Henry said he wanted to see high water. The trip over there was beautiful. When everything starts changing, drying up, clearing off, you feel like your whole life is starting” (Erdrich 312). Henry chose this place because he wanted to have a pleasant ending of his life. Lyman expected that this could happen because he felt in his stomach exactly the same symptoms as Henry was feeling. The two of them were closely related and that is why Henry did not have to talk much to Lyman who had a developed sense of empathy and could understand his brother’s suffering. The moment he started the fight over the car with his brother, he knew that he was helping Henry relieve the tension he was feeling. They had much fun and spent a serene afternoon and evening when Henry decided to kill himself. It seems as if he decided to end his life at the moment during which he felt good about himself and about life. He did not want to wait for the symptoms of PTSD to return and he chose to kill himself instead.
This story is about PTSD and its effects on people even though they are strong enough to endure the most difficult situations. Henry was a strong person, but he could not bear suffering from PTSD. It is never revealed what caused his disorder, but he was caught by the Vietnamese soldiers. This could be the reason for the development of PTSD and Henry suffered too much in his life without receiving the proper treatment. There was no medical help offered to him because he lived on an Indian reservation. Moreover, he was among the first group of people who were diagnosed with PTSD because he was a veteran from the war in Vietnam. Henry was a good person and a good brother before the war and the war changed him in the negative way although he remained kind towards his brother. However, his zest for life no longer existed which is why he chose to kill himself.
Works Cited
Erdrich, Louise. The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories, 1978-2008. New York: Harper Perennial, 2010. Print.
Levin, Aaron. "Three Key Factors Interact to Increase PTSD Risk." Psychiatric News 48.8 (2013): 15. Web. 14 May 2016. <http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2013.4a12>.
Eichelman, Burr. "Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, and Suicide." The American Journal of Psychiatry 167.10 (2010): 1152-54. Web. 14 May 2016. <http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.10060870>.
