Theme-#3

For this week’s blog, I’d like you to identify and discuss a theme in one of this week’s stories: either “Second Variety” or “Take Your Choice.”


Of the two stories we read this week, "Second Variety" and "Take Your Choice", I want to discuss the theme of uncertainty in "Take Your Choice". From the very start, the reader is just kind of thrown in to the story. The main character (who's name we do not know) is found wandering around looking for a "swimming equipment" store. I found myself feeling just as confused as him. Once the main character is inside the room with the three doors, he still does not know what to make of everything. He cannot get a straight answer to any of his questions from the "little man". If I were in his position I would feel incredibly irritated at the little man for not answering my questions, when I am about to give him two million five hundred thousand credits! He is there because he wants to change his future, which is a huge decision, and the "time travelers" give him such a short amount of time to choose which future. As I progressed in the story, I was more and more anxious and thinking, "What's the catch?" while the man who wanted the new future slowly convinced himself the whole show was legitimate. Overall, the reader knows that it was all a hoax in the end but the main character is completely in the dark, and actually believes he is in an alternate reality.

On a different note, I really liked the ending of the story when the two men that put on the time machine scam discussed what the world would be like with all these people thinking it will end in a decade. The human mind is so powerful, once something is in our heads it is hard for it to not shape and influence us. All the people that chose that reality will very possibly take the steps that lead to the destruction they chose and end up making it happen.