1. The Raisin
2. Love at first sight
3. Aath Aana
4. Batti
Let me analyze it one at a time.
The raisin is the story of an angry old man living isolated in the moor. We see his desolate existence cooking a meager meal of roasted potatoes. He tries to find balance by buying ten kilograms of chocolate covered raisins even though he doesn't want to eat them. I found this symbolism interesting. A lonely man who instead of the obvious solution to splitting his sack of potatoes into two, has chosen to accumulate something unecessary. Soon we find out he has other baggage: prejudice. The first one we think seems fair. After all, no one likes dishonesty. The other seems harmless but needless. After all who hates squirrels? Then we see how he pivots the conversation with a woman who it is later revealed had come to his home in an act of kindness. We see him forcing this old woman to count raisins previously stuffed in his underwear. You may wonder why did this nice lady humors him. That's the point. Nice people tend to humor mean ones and suffer for it. So although at the end, he realizes he was wrong and accused a perfectly nice woman of being dishonest, even though she was only "guessing" something, he took his prejudice against "dishonesty" to a different unreasonable level. The emotionally satisfying ending for the viewer lies not just in seeing the look of remorse on his face, but the actual consequence: food getting burned in the oven. Another symbolism for your bottom line will be affected if you are distracted by needless hatred. Yes, hatred is the word he uses to describe his sentiments against liars and squirrels.
What is the message of The Raisin?
Needless hatred, no matter how justified you think it is, can harm you and make you look like a fool.
Rethink your deep seated prejudices.
How did the storytellers design the story?
The protagonist who narratest the story in the first person starts off eliciting some sympathy because we see him trudging up a desolate plain carrying heavy load. So although he is shaded negatively, the viewer is interested in knowing about his life. Then he veers onto the negative with his hatred of squirrels and liars.
The protagonist is an old man who you can feel sorry for, but at the same time believe is a person with unnecessary prejudices. You see how he loses something important i.e his food for the day because of his prejudice.
The middle of the story: The part where he stuffs his underwear with raisins. This seems rather unusual. And then how did the old woman know what was in them?
Who would be the protagonist of a story if I wanted to convey the following messages:
1. Your true intentions will always show
2. Arrogance and bitterness are qualities that go together just like anxiety correlates with fear of the unknown
