Identify and explain numerous literary conflicts within Erdrich "The Red Convertible." Classify (i.e., person versus self, nature, or other) and explain the significance of these conflicts to the story. Start with the most central and important, such as person versus self in Henry. The Vietnam War is one source of conflict (person vs. other), for example, as are cultural differences.

Here are three:
One conflict you could talk about has to do with identity. Henry and Lyman both have a sense of alienation or difference from White society, but more importantly, they both are in conflict with who they are as people. Lyman, for example, tends to dissociate the “real“ Lyman from the Lyman that is good at making money; his talent at business lets him own a business by age 16, but the restaurant-owning Lyman is distinct from the younger-brother Lyman, who idolizes his older brother Henry. Henry comes back from Vietnam psychologically damaged; it is as if the Henry who drove with Lyman to Alaska one summer no longer exists, and in his place is a new Henry, silent and brooding. The end of the story, when Lyman shakes Henry and tells him to “wake up,” is a plea for Henry to return to his old self, but Henry cannot do it. When he calls Lyman and himself “crazy Indians,” it’s meant to be a joke, referring to their earlier time roadtripping, but in fact it is a kind of diagnosis, a realization that Henry really is crazy, and there is no getting better.
Henry’s drowning could be seen as the result of another conflict, between man and nature. Nature is not hostile or in opposition to the brothers, however. Part of the brothers’ relationship and their identity as Indians comes from their relationship with the natural world, which is described during their road trip as a place of adventure and repose (even the car, when they first see it, is alive, “reposing” on the street). Lyman’s attempt to get Henry out of his depression by repairing the car is an expression of his hope that a reconnection to the outside world will bring the old Henry back, but their final trip to see the “high water” on the river does just the opposite. One way to understand the end of the story is to see the river as an antagonistic force, the swollen waters representing an outward manifestation of Henry’s inner turmoil. Or it could be understood as a sort of return to nature; Henry’s decision to jump in the water is just a natural to him as sleeping under the willows.
Another conflict could be man vs technology. In this conflict, the car becomes an ambiguous symbol; it seems to be alive; it is a source of pride; it is the key to Henry and Lyman’s freedom, and their escape to Alaska. On the other hand, the car is unable, in the end, to save Henry; the work he does to fix it up, far from bringing him back, only underscores his alienation from people around him. Lyman’s sabotage of the car is like his sabotage of their new color television; both are meant to help Henry, but both ultimately fail.