Reader-response Criticism of "The Red Convertible"

Introduction

The literary theory of reader-response criticism has been recognized as an actual literary theory since the 1960's through the 1980's. It was actually developed by two men, Louise Rosenblatt and supported by Wolfgang Iser. Of the literary theories I scanned through and did research on, I found this theory to be of the most interesting. This is because while it may have been recognized as an initial theory only 45 years ago, humans have been giving reader-responses to stories and literary works since the beginning of literature itself. We react to stories and create our own understandings of the literary texts themselves and react according to what we come up with in our own minds.

As an audience it is our role as readers to read, understand, and respond to a work of all kinds. However, the theory of reader-response criticism is a bit more in depth than just a simple browse through a literary work. It is an actual in depth examination of all parts of a story, inferring and comprehending the actual meaning of the story in all of its elements to the best of our abilities and then creating a critique based on our own personal thoughts and beliefs to the literary work.

Wikipedia has the most basic explanation for what a reader-response criticism literary theory is: 'Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or 'audience') and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work.'

From the other places that I looked to gather a good picture as to what the reader-response criticism actually was, I do prefer a better statement from a website aside from Wikipedia. I felt I had to put this quote in here because from a readers standpoint, if you had never actually heard of this criticism before, you would typically look it up and find Wikipedia to be the easiest to find. However, I want to post an explanation that works better for me and express why I find it more suitable than Wikipedia's definition.

The explanation I find to be much more suitable is by Aresearchguide: 'Typically, Reader-response criticism revolves around the phenomena ‘Respond to Reading’. The theory identifies the reader as a significant and active agent who is responsible to impart the real meaning of the text by interpreting it. The modern school of thought argues on the existing perception of literature. According to it, literature is like a performing art that enables the reader to create his own text-related unique performance.'

I prefer this quote far more than Wikipedia because it actually implements what the reader-response criticism is all about, the reader. This is far more understandable and a great way to word things compared to just 'focuses on the reader'. I like that actually explains how it focuses on the reader.

Literary criticism

Before we properly discuss and apply the literary theory or reader-response to the story I have picked, we need to efficiently understand and know who the author of the story is. Louis Erdrich is the author and creator of The Red Convertible short story. She is most notably known for her array of stories that relate to Native Americans and their struggles. I found this interesting after reading The Red Convertible and understanding that the two brothers and family that were introduced in the story are in fact Native Americans that struggle to live on a Native American Reservation during the 70's.

She has won a wide variety of awards for different stories such as the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. As being part Ojibwa native herself on her mother's side, this allowed her main focus in her writings to focus more so on this group and their culture. It was quite interesting, knowing she grew up in Minnesota, which is typically a cold and scenic state by means of nature.

Reading her literary works allowed her history of Minnesota and North Dakota landscapes to spill out into the pages even if the book was not exactly in Minnesota. She is most notably known for how she is able to create such well-rounded and interesting characters through her techniques of characterization. There were not many stories I had read this semester where characterization was such a pivotal aspect of a story. Despite her popularity and recognition being more so related to her numerous lovely novels, her short stories are just as well written as the longer literary works.

The Red Convertible was a very sad story that knowing Erdrich's past writing themes, a sad atmosphere was to be expected. The story of the Red Convertible was of two brothers, the narrator being the younger brother. The two were very close, living with their parents and younger sister on a Native American Reservation in the 70's.

The narrator brother talks about how he was very lucky growing up with money and tells the story of how he and his brother went out and bought a red convertible together. Technically the older brother owned it and continuously tried to give it to his younger brother to keep. The narrator continues to tell the story of the incredible adventures he and his brother went on with the red convertible up until his brother was drafted into the Vietnam War.

When the older brother returned from the war, the story shifted from happy times to dark ones where the family did their best to keep a distance from the brother who now suffered from a severe case of PTSD. They did everything they could to not provoke him and it talked about the various oddities that the older brother would do because of his psychological trauma. The younger brother had a very hard time after a while, talking about how he could not handle the lack of connection he had with his brother anymore. This led him to take a risk that he thought would help.

He went out into the garage and destroyed the red convertible as much as he could, hoping it would do something to his brother and cause him to come back and reconnect. However, this did not work. The brother did in fact work on the car but once it was fixed it did not fix his mind, only the material object. They decided to go for a ride in the car for old times’ sake. Unfortunately they got into a fight over who was to take care of the car, causing the brother to jump into the river they had camped out by and kill himself. The brother tried his best to find his traumatized brother and failed, sending the convertible in after him as if he was trying to find him.

I found the way that this story portrayed PTSD and the relationship between two brothers to be incredibly interesting. The way it goes into detail with how the brother would sit and watch the colored TV in a constant state of flight or fight was really sad. Another example was of how the brother would accidentally hurt himself and not realize he was doing it. He had bitten right through his lip at one point and had taken no acknowledgement of it.

Erdrich did a really excellent job on describing just how heartbreaking PTSD can be on the victim as well as on the family of the victim. As someone who personally knows an individual with VT, Verticular Trauma, I would not be surprised if the younger brother had some form of VT after what he had experienced with his brother. It seemed likely since he could not even pass a closet that he knowingly had a picture of his deceased brother inside of it.

Despite its immensely sad ending, this story was a big literary work on symbolism. The biggest and by far the most obvious symbol was of course, the red convertible. The red convertible represented the bond these two brothers shared. The bond was so strong between the two brothers. They spent summers together riding around in the convertible and have so many happy memories with it after purchasing it together. They even made a fantastic trip up to Alaska and befriend various people until they came home again, never seeing those people again.

After Henry goes and comes back from the Vietnam War. His brother notices he is different, twitchy, angry, easily provoked due to his PTSD. Because of this, the red convertible is used as a way to try and revive their once incredible bond. Unfortunately it does not work, it only results in Henry becoming hyper fixated on fixing the car rather than understanding the enjoyment of it. This is what PTSD can do to people. It can cause you to hyper fixate on the right things. However, these hyperfixations are not always the healthiest and are not going to help anything and in a lot of cases, can make things worse than they already are.. Therefore, the convertible did not strengthen their bond, it only strengthened the car.

The brothers ended up getting in a fight due to Henry's brother refusing to take the car from him and keep it. Henry jumps in the flood after a strange fit that his brother did not recognize and dies, therefore proving that not even a fixed convertible can save the once strong bond with his brother. His brother then drives the car into the flood to look for him, thus symbolizing the death of their bond.

Many people react differently to the ending. Some react to it in a literal sense. The younger brother drove the car into the flood, not wanting to have a reminder of the horrible and depressing fate his brother experienced. While some people may have reacted to it in the opposite way that I had taken it. They may have believed that by forcing the car into the flooding river, he was putting his brothers tormented soul to rest. I however felt it was symbolizing the death of the bond as well as the death of his brother.

Conclusion

I definitely really enjoyed this story as a literary work. Expressing the struggles of Native Americans and PTSD victims during the Vietnam War put out a very interesting message about the relationship between family and trauma survivors. PTSD not only affects the victims themselves. It can also tear families apart and even cause trauma for the family members as well. The narrator of the story was a good example of how PTSD can affect another person and give them trauma. I really liked how it was described and presented. The way she wrote the narrator's perspective was casual yet very reliable and informative.

Works Cited

1. “A Brief Guide to Reader-Response Criticism.” A Research Guide for Students, 22 Aug. 2018, www.aresearchguide.com/reader-response-criticism.html.
2. Erdrich, Louise. The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories. HarperCollins, 2009.
3. “Louise Erdrich.” HarperCollins Publishers: World-Leading Book Publisher, www.harpercollins.com/author/cr-100712/louise-erdrich/.
4. Reader-Response Criticism, public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/reader.crit.html.
5. “Reader-Response Criticism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Nov. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response_criticism.
6. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Louise Erdrich.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 3 Mar. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/Louise-Erdrich.