In the two short stories, “Free Radio” and “Everything Rises Must Converge,” the main characters in each story must make many important decisions/choices. The choices that are made change how other characters perceive the main character as well as how they react towards him. In the short story “The Free Radio” by Salman Rushdie, Ram has many choices to make throughout the story. Ram, who could have had anything he wanted in the world, made many bad choices. Ram was the cutest guy in town; he had everything going for him. Then he met the widow and her five children, and he also started hanging around with the armbands of the young people, these people led to the downfall of Ram. Radio was a way for Ram to escape reality and when Ram didn't understand, he had to face all the negative choices he had made. This is what hurt Ram because he had made so many negative choices throughout the story. The theme of this story is to be happy in whatever you do and if that's not the case, you can always move to a new city and start again like Ram did. In the short story "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flanery O'Connor, Julian learns that there are more people in this world than him. The way he learns this is by taking his overweight mother every Wednesday night to the Y so she can exercise. Julian's mother is afraid to go alone because her town has become segregated. In the story, there is an expensive hat that Julian's mother wears. The mother was skeptical about wearing it because she thought it was funny, but she wore it anyway. While she was on the bus to the Y, a colored lady arrived wearing a hat similar to that of Julian's mothers. When Julian saw this, he started making fun of his mother because she had the same hat as a person of color..