War Trauma in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red C...

War Trauma in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible”: A Native American Perspective

Author Name : Nanduri Raj Gopal

ABSTRACT

Native American writer Louise Erdrich is famous for depicting and interpreting the twentieth-century Chippewa life inNorth Dakota through her works. The short story The Red Convertible was first published as part of her novel Love Medicine in 1984.Erdrich discusses the difficulties many VietnamWar soldiers and their relatives encountered following the war in this story. It is a narrative concerning two brothers striving to survive with the dynamics of their altering bond and the evolving new social reality. Due to the Vietnam War(1959-1975), American society drastically transformed, and the character of Chippewa tribe member Henry in the story, who was a  veteran ofthe war,transformed from a fun-loving youngster to an estrangedvictim of post-traumatic stress disorder and ultimately led to the loss of his life. This paper aims to highlight the suffering of war veterans like Henry and their emotional dispassion resulting from ideological and military confrontations involving the United States and the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Keywords: Native American Short Stories, Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible, Vietnam War,  War trauma.