Henry and Lyman

Henry and Lyman

  • Submitted By: gyanes
  • Date Submitted: 03/09/2009 10:06 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1032
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 459

A story of two American Indian brothers
“The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich, is a great short story, about two American Indian brothers, Henry and Lyman. The brothers are full of life, happy, carefree, friendly, and always having fun. Suddenly, Henry, the older one, had to go to the Vietnam War, and is captured by the enemy. When Henry, finally comes back home, he finds himself dealing with some serious emotional disturbances. Lyman, his younger brother, is consumed by his own undertaking to help his dear brother, back to the life they once shared.
After Henry came back from the Vietnam War, he was a completely different person. He was not the same, and the change was bad. It wasn’t a little or subtle change. If you knew Henry, you would have loved hanging out with him. He loved to laugh, to joke around, talk about all different stuff, always helpful, considerate of others, and loved to be around people. There was this time, when Henry, started dancing and jumping around, with this small girl sitting on his shoulders. She had long hair, and sitting on top of Henry, her hair went down pass his waist, it was really funny, and he made everyone laugh so hard.
After returning home, from the Vietnam War, he did not speak much about anything, he pretty much kept to himself, not the Henry everybody knew. The old Henry was always chatty, so the family left him alone, hoping that he would come around on his own. Lyman, Henry’s brother, on the other hand was anxious to have the old Henry back, and could not stand to see his brother, sitting in front of the TV, day and night. Occasionally, Henry, would jump to the window, and stared out in a vigilant way, like he was expecting something, or maybe terrified of enemies hunting him down, the family had never seen him act this way.
It was not hard to see that the war had affected him severely, with some kind of a serious emotional trauma. Henry was now jumpy, mean and disconnected to all around him. When sitting...

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