Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

In Erdrich’s Red Convertible and Cheever’s Reunion In Erdrich’s Red Convertible and Cheever’s Reunion protagonists move from Freud’s ego, to Freud’s id after an epiphany that they face in their young lives. The epiphany in both stories is a single event. Because of this event in each story, the main character undergoes an experience which gives the repressed emotions of the id an opportunity to reappear to the conscious mind. This concept explains the main characters reactions to the other characters in the story after the event. The event in Cheever’s story is a gathering in which Charlie and his father have not seen each other in over three years. The father is drunk and rude at lunch. In Erdrich’s story, the event was Lyman’s brother, returning from Vietnam “jumpy and mean” (516). Both authors put these events within their story to show the main character’s personality. The characters personality changes after these events. The personality change is from Freud’s ego to the id. Before the two events, each author portrays each of the main character’s (Charlie and Lyman) Freudian ego being the dominant part of their personality. By definition, the ego is the part of the personality that