When we read literature, we often try to use particular threads of thought or critical lenses to access the implied historical or legendary nature of the literature . To accurately treat a tale in the light in which it is presented, we must consider the text from several points of view. We must take into consideration intentional and emotional errors as well as the socio-economic circumstances of the presenter/author/narrator. We must also consider how our personal experience creates biases by placing story elements within the web of relationships we use to interpret the outside world. It is also necessary to consider other external pressures, stemming from societal norms, cultural ideals and psychological themes, and how they imprint themselves on us from the outside in. All of these factors are at play in the relationships between objects within a text, creating a form of reality with its own historical and mythic properties. Characters have their own stories and structures, expressed or unspoken, and their perception in the fictional world in which they reside exerts an influence on the reader of literature or viewer of art. This influence can create a sense of immersive reality that makes the reading experience a mythical truth, based on fact but not on emotion or direct perception, a somewhat distanced representation of events. However, it can also be an expression of a perceptual truth, events are experienced as they would be in real life – confusing and disjointed. To examine these narrative elements of the text, I will use examples from Lois Erdrich's "The Red Cabriolet" to demonstrate how Lyman's storytelling style is representative of psychoanalytic concepts, showing how he handles the situations presented...... middle of paper......this hat removes the emotional wave from the experience. And with all the other examples of repression and displacement, as well as selective memory, we can see that "The Red Cabriolet" itself is perhaps a representation of how we often place our experiences in a mythic status as way to repress the bad parties. of experience. That even the grotesque sublime that occurs in life can be stripped down to its essence and told in a way that makes it appealing, and therefore controllable, as opposed to the unstable reality that actually surrounds and influences us. Works Cited Erdrich, Louise. The red convertible. 1984. eFictions. Ed. Joseph F. Trimper, C. Wade Jennings and Annette Patterson. Cambridge: Heinle and Heinle, 2004. 191-206. Print. Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.