The Red Convertible By Erdrich Analysis

1. In “The Red Convertible,” Erdrich talks about the relationship between two brothers. Both, Lyman and Henry, had a very close connection for each other even when it comes to like the same car and girl whose name was Susy. After that delightful summer, Henry was called for military service leaving Lyman in charge of their precious car. Lyman decides to fix the car while Henry was absented because he wanted to surprise him and because he was expecting to go on another road trip to catch up on their relationship. However, the return of Henry was nothing as Lyman expected. Henry did not even bother to thank Lyman for fixing the car; he did not even notice the change. Henry’s attitude had changed, his family was tormented for his change specially …show more content…
In “Home Soil,” what tormented Bohdan’s father was his attitude towards Jewish people. He did not know he had that demon inside him until Nazis soldiers recruited him as he says, “I felt such an intense charge of power, more so than I had ever felt writing some of my best poems.”(Zabytko 645). The power of the rifle possessed him. He had finally gotten the power in his hands and it was not for writing to the Nazis it was because now the life of Jewish people was in his hands. Something that impacted his life forever was the sudden appearance of a young girl. He does not forgive himself for the way he treated her. He felt regretted because he had the opportunity to change her life in two different ways; the first way was by shooting her to stop all her suffer and the second way was by liberating her something almost impossible but he could have at least tried. However, he did absolutely nothing, he just watched her …show more content…
Valenzuela does a very good work trying to represent how people get corrupted when power is given to them. As Juan did, many others have gotten to the power with a purpose behind them. Corruption does not only happen at the political level, it can happen at any job or in any place. In "The Censors," Valenzuela represents the corruption through Juan who has a conflict with the government. Juan writes a letter to Mariana who lives in Paris. He sent the letter with the purpose of being in touch with her. He thinks that it will not be possible because before the letter gets to Mariana 's hand it has to pass for a long process since the government used to check everything in order to keep the people submitted to its regimen. Juan sees the opportunity to apply for a position where letters were read and approved to be sent out. He applied to the job hoping to find his own letter to accelerate the revising process. Juan’s plan was against the government, he wanted to get power to use it for his own benefits. His obsess became too obvious to the point that his mother tried to convince him to not get more involved with the government but it was too late his fascination for his job had already consumed him as the narrator says, “…any distraction could make him lose his edge and the perfect censor had to be alert, keen, attentive, and sharp to nab cheats. He had a truly patriotic task, both self-denying and