THE CHOICE

• The "Choice" that the title is referring to, is for a five year old girl (Rebecca) to either pick between swallowing bitter, foul tasting poison herself or have her parents force it down her throat to save her life.
• I don't believe that this is a real choice because whichever one she chooses, she still has to swallow poison no matter what. They just give the illusion of it being a choice to try and make it less painful.
• The author uses the word "poison" in the first line to try and show some of the pain they are going through, having to do that to their own daughter.
• Rebecca wants to play with a toy that is made for kids eight and up and makes a big scene about wanting to play with it because she knows that she might not live that long.
• If I thought I might not live to the age of 30, I would work/train my body and increase my boxing skills to achieve my dream of becoming the greatest boxer of my time with what time I have left to live.
• In my opinion, I don't see any kind of circumstance in which it makes sense to endure that much pain and discomfort because that "poison" might work as a permanent cure for her but that means she has to go through that pain of swallowing the poison everyday of her life and there is nothing that is worth living with pain.
• I do believe that suffering is a necessary condition to live and love because it shows as that we are human, we do have the emotion to feel sad and to feel happy, we are not mindless artificial creatures.
• We as the reader feel an emotional response to this man's words because we can only begin to imagine the pain he is going through to have to do that to his daughter just to try and save her life but at the same time not kill her yourself by giving too much.