Exploring change Changing means becoming different, progressing and growing. In Louise Erdrich's stories “Red Convertible” and “The Shawl” the idea of ​​change is used as a catalyst to move the stories forward in a new and interesting direction. Both stories explain or imply some sort of change in their first sentences. The first sentence of "Red Convertible" reads: "I was the first to drive a convertible with my reservation." This is a change to the reservation, as it is the first time anyone has driven a convertible on the reservation. Additionally, a convertible is a type of car that can transform to have a roof or not. The first sentence of “The Shawl” reads: “Among the Anishinaabeg on the street where I live, there is a story of how a woman loved a man other than her husband and went into the bush and gave birth to his son.” This too has multiple examples of change. First, the narrator states that there is a story where a woman loves a new man, which is a change for her. She also has a child with this new lover; having another child will change anyone's life. The narrator also uses the words “is told” to show that he did not experience the story firsthand, implying that the story may have been altered in some way after being told multiple times. So, from the first sentence of each story, the audience knows that change will be a common topic throughout the rest of the stories. In the "Red Convertible" story Henry owns a red convertible, which is his pride and joy. . But after he left and returned from the Vietnam War, both he and the convertible changed. Henry, as noted by the narrator, Lyman, “was very different and…the change was not good.” So Lyman, thinking “the car might be carrying… middle of paper… the narrator's father. Legend has it that after being surrounded by wolves, Aanakwad threw her daughter to them to save herself, which the boy witnesses; not knowing what it was from afar. In the end, however, the narrator proposes a new idea. He asks, “don't you think that… [the daughter] jumped… Don't you think that she picked up the shawl and flew?” Even the last sentence proposes a change or a new perception of the story. Perhaps the narrator's opinion of the legend has changed, and he is the one who changes. So from the first sentence to the last, change is the driving force of the story. Change is what makes life interesting, for better or for worse. Without change, life would be static and, for the most part, boring. Louise Erdrich, the author of the short stories "Red Convertible" and "The Shawl", uses change as an important topic to carry her stories forward.