The Concept Of Depression In The Red Convertible, The Lottery, And The Things They Carried

In the “Red Convertible,” it is shown two Native American brothers Lyman and Henry out in the world traveling wherever the wind takes them. One major theme of the story involves looking at the effects of war on the individual. In addition, the bond between brothers and the responsibility they have towards each other is examined. Lyman uses the car as an excuse for the brother to bond.. The red convertible in the story is the symbol representing the high points and low points that the brothers went through. In the beginning of the story the convertible was in mint condition and that was when the two brothers were at their happiest. Later on in the book the brother was sent to war and came back after nine months of combat duty in vietnam. After that the brother wasn’t the same and wasn’t his old happy self and even looking at his convertible didn’t make him happy. So, Lyman got upset at that and wrecked the convertible showing that the brothers was not in a good place at the time. Later on Henry decided to start fixing the car and that’s when the brothers were happy again until the day that they went down to the river and Henry killed himself. In the three stories The Red Convertible,The Lottery, and The Things They Carried shows a sense of how experiences affect people and can put them in a place in life where decision-making has to be crucial.

The Red convertible symbolizes Henry and Lyman’s youthful innocence and the liberty that incorporates it. When they first see the convertible for sale, they’re electrified by means of it like their kids, it appears to them “alive” and alluring. They purchase it almost without thinking, recklessly spending all their money and leaving barely sufficient to buy gas to get home. Then, they ride all over North America in it, still carefree and paying little attention to maintaining the car. When they go back home, however, the automobile isn’t in fantastic shape and Henry receives drafted into battle their carefree, youthful behavior, it appears, is catching up to them and coming to an end. While Henry is gone, Lyman fixes the auto up and keeps it perfectly, however, Henry comes again from the battle a changed man. He is now uninterested inside the car, which shows his distance from the freedom, youth, and innocence it symbolizes. Lyman damages the automobile in an try to get Henry to restoration it, thereby giving him an interest and a purpose. For a while, this appears to work. Henry fixates on repairing the automobile and he seems in better spirits, and he even invitations Lyman on a pleasure journey to the river as soon as the car is fixed, which hearkens returned to their carefree journeying days. However, the innocence and freedom of youngsters can’t be regained once misplaced on that trip, Henry drowns and while Lyman can not store him, Lyman pushes the automobile into the river, destroying it within the same manner that his personal freedom and innocence have been destroyed via his brother’s death.

In “The things they carried” it shows A person being killed by a sniper rifle as he was trying to use the bathroom. Lieutenant cross did a bad job on protecting his men rather than thinking about Martha. They stripped the dead soldier from his gear. And result the lieutenant feel terrible inside that he digs a hole and cries about it. He burns pictures, notes and anything to do relating to Martha. Both stories show how in the Vietnam war on how death can happen in an instant without hesitation. Let it be known that both of the stories take place in the army which wasn’t really a good time and place for the Americans. The Vietnam war happened because the two sides had differences. It was more than that but communism is what they fought for and capitalism is what we stand for so we settled it on the battlegrounds and in result we lose. On some aspects they are very different from each story. One story creates an idea and a solution which is burning pictures and the other one just gives up and goes through with the idea of him dying by his own hand. War really changes a person‘s mindset and how they think. People can’t imagine what horrific acts happen during war.

In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson the lottery that the villagers are entered in actually appears to be a ritual sacrifice of one of the villagers to ensure they will have a good crop season. Even though they never specifically said it in the story i still believe that they did this to ensure they would have a good amount of rain to have enough crops for the entire village. In “The Red Convertible” Lyman and Henry are two brothers who purchase a red convertible together. Henry later on gets deployed to serve the military. When Henry later comes back he is a changed man. He doesn’t seem happy and his brother seems to realized that he has gone into a deep pit of depression. Since even when looking at the red convertible didn’t make Henry happy, Lyman decided to destroy it. After that Henry took interest in fixing it which made Lyman happy that his brother finally was doing something. But sadly in the end Henry decided to kill himself since he wasn’t happy with the life he had. Comparing the two books they both end in deaths which is a crucial part in the stories. Only that one decided to die and the other was chosen to be sacrificed.

In all the stories they are unique in their own way. They are all connected because death is involved in each of the story. Two of the stories ”The things they carried” and The lottery” ended up getting killed by a person or people rather in “The red convertible” he took his own life. The lottery was an interesting story because it shows the person‘s true colors once they are about to die. In this case one of the sisters wanted someone else to die rather than herself, which is very selfish. This story reminds me of the movie Hunger Games because it shows a random person being selected for a position where nobody wants to get picked and can result in death. You have no choice, you have to go through with it if you are selected.

I think it’s important to recognize that Henry clearly chooses to die in the end. In result of that he has made an effort of saying goodbye and giving away his things for reasons he thought was necessary. He goes swimming with his boots on which is oddly suspicious to his brother. While his body is emerging in the water deeper by each step he takes he doesn’t fight the current rather then accepts it and because of that it leads to Henry’s demise. All these stories result in death. In the three stories The Red Convertible, The Lottery, and The Things They Carried shows a sense of how experiences affect people and can put them in a place in life where decision making has to be crucial.