The Free Radio Summary

Decent Essays
The story “The Free Radio” shows an old man’s struggle to adjust to the new world and a young man’s ability to believe in his dreams immensely. “The Free Radio” illustrates connections between two different generations having different ideas and beliefs through an old man’s outdated ideas about respect and happiness, and the naive but powerful force of a younger man’s faith in his dreams. An old man’s outdated ideas about respect cause confusion and outrage. The old man narrates, “We felt bad for{Ramani}, but who listens to the wisdom of the old today? I say: who listens? Exactly; nobody…” (1244). The old man is frustrated that no one will listen to him just because he is an elder. He also says that no one listens to the “wisdom of the old …show more content…
Ramani always has powerful faith in his dreams and the old man said about him, “Ramani suddenly began to talk about his new fantasy… he was to receive a highly special and personalized gift from the Central Government of Delhi itself, and his gift was to be a brand new first class battery operated transistor radio.” Since Ramani is talking a lot about this new “fantasy” You can tell he is very excited to receive his radio. This is a good example showing how Ramani has such powerful faith in his dreams. In another example the old man said about Ramani, “Ram always had the rare quality of total belief in his dreams, and there were times when his faith in the imaginary radio almost took us in, so that we half-believed it was really on its way” (1248). This displays just how much Ramani believed in his dreams. The old man comes out and says this very clearly that Ramani had the “rare quality of total belief in his dreams”. He says that Ramani believed in his dreams so much that even he and others started to believe him. This is the best example showing how because of the fact that Ramani had the most extreme faith in his dreams that he himself made other people believe he was going to receive this radio. Even though everyone already knew he was not, he still showed intense belief. Finally the old man says about Ramani, “I did not have the heart to tell him what everyone else in the …show more content…
The old man says this about the boy, Ramani, “That boy could have had a good life… but didn’t {father} leave the boy a brand new first class rickshaw… so; looks he had, his own trade… but no, he must fall for a thief 's widow” (1244). He thinks the boy can have a good life just sticking to his trade that his father passed down and that should shape his life. People must have lived like this back in the day that the old man remembers because he seems very angry and upset that the boy decided to instead marry the thief 's widow and thinks that he just threw away his “good life” when he describes them as, “She has all her five brats…So they all poured into the rickshaw and he took her away, and with the five kiddies as well as the widow there was quite a weight… and I thought, careful, my son or you will have this burden to pull for life” (1245). The old man does not approve of the thieve’s widow because he calls her kids “five brats.” If you don’t like someone, you would say something like this and call their children “brats” so you can tell he obviously does not like the thieve’s widow. However then he warns Ramani to think carefully “or you will have this burden to pull for life.” This has significance because he does not refer to this big weight from all the people, but the mental “burden” of the thief 's widow and children which he refers to a bad life. He is still trying to warn Ramani of this widow

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