Free The Lesson And The Red Convertible: A Comparison Essay Sample

“The Lesson,” by Toni Code Bambera, is a story about children who live in a poor part of New York, and have lived in poverty all their lives. Several of them have become close friends; notably the narrator and “Sugar,” her best friend. A Mrs. Moore moves into the neighborhood and takes an interest in the lives of the children. She is childless herself, but has “been to college,” and she acts in what the children think is a pretty hoity-toity fashion. Mrs. Moore begins to design outings for the kids, and finally takes them by taxi to the huge F.A.O. Schwartz store on Fifth Avenue. There, the kids see toys and other objects they just cannot believe because the prices are so high. There is a thousand-dollar miniature sailboat that preoccupies everyone’s interest, bringing up fantasies and commentary from all the kids.
It seems a little unclear as to why Mrs, Moore took the children to the store in the first place. One can only slobber and drool there over the wonderful toys and the staggering prices. Each child left with his or her own reactions; the moderator, whose name we never learn, finishes by saying, “But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nothin!”
“The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdich, narrated by Lyman Lamartine, is a different kind of story with some similarities. In this case, the narrator, Lyman, relates mainly to his brother Henry. They were born and raised on an Indian Reservation, but they are maturing as the story
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begins, and Henry has always known how to make money, even as a child. Early on in the story, the two of them purchase a vintage red Oldsmobile convertible together, which they greatly enjoy fixing up until it is in cherry condition.
Henry then is drafted into the Vietnam War, and when he returns, he is a totally different man. He has become quiet and jumpy and unable to sit still with Wyman, and Wyman and his mom are really worried about him. In the end, Henry drowns in an overflowing river while Wyman searches and searches for him. Wyman finally slides the car into the river too.
The themes of both stories are about friendship, support, distance, poverty, loss. In “The Lesson,” the children are mostly stuck in one place, except for the short outings that Mrs. Moore arranges for them. In “The Red Convertible,” Wyman and Henry travel vast distances in their car, all the way to Chicken, Alaska, where they stay for a few months. So one is a story about being rooted in one poverty-stricken place, and the other is about freedom on the road, seemingly without much financial worry. All of the characters are of ethnicities other than white, who are traditionally seen as “underprivileged,” even if they are not, as Henry and Wyman seem not to be.
The theme of brotherhood--and sisterhood--is very powerful in these stories. In “The Red Convertible,” the brothers seem to almost live in their own little world with their red Olds, without very many other characters present. In “The Lesson,” there is a group of school children who seem very close, especially the narrator and her friend Sugar. So both stories are about youth bonding closely in order to face a harsh world. In “The Red Convertible,” though, Wyman loses his brother to the Vietnam War for three years, and then, obviously, to the PTSD that
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Henry brings back with him when he returns. So he suffers a huge loss, which he tries to “fix” by getting Henry interested in the convertible again. There is not the same sense of loss in “The Lesson,” but there IS a sense of all the kids going in their own directions at the end.
As far as dialogue goes, the New York kids speak street talk, and the two Native American brothers do not seem to have any particular accent or “different” way of speaking. The New York children chatter, whereas the Indian brothers use an economy of language, and seem to have a special way of talking to each other that both understand.
The imagery in both stories is beautiful; from “The Lesson,” for example: “watchin the tracks whizzin by large then small then gettin gobbled up in the dark.” From “The Red Convertible:” (The river) was just at its limit: hard swollen glossy like an old gray scar.” The imagery in both stories is written in the local vernacular, I presume, and it is very effective.
The red convertible and the $1000 fiberglass sailboat at the toy store both take on the meaning of escape. The car is actually used as a vehicle for this, whereas possible uses of the sailboat are only in the childrens’ imaginations. The Native Americans GOT what they wanted: the car, whereas the kids can’t possibly afford to buy anything at F.A.O. Schwartz. All they can maybe afford by the end of the story is half a chocolate layer, some potato chips, and ice cream sodas.
There is sadness in both of these stories. In “The Lesson,” kids are viewing things that they may never grow up to be able to afford, and knowing that they may never get out of their own neighborhood, whereas the Native American brothers have probably already BEEN as far as they are going, and one is gone now and the other one is walking.
The red convertible and the sailboat both take on powerful meaning as symbols. The car is a symbol of bonding between the brothers, and freedom for both of them, whereas the sailboat is a symbol of the unreachable, unobtainable, and ridiculous for the New York kids. The points of view are similar in the two stories, although in “The Red Convertible,” we know who is telling the story—Wyman—and in “The Lesson,” we never learn the name of the narrator. But both are very involved in the stories, which are both told in the first person, making the narrators credible and sympathetic characters.