The Choice

A. The text is about a man called Michael Dillon and his wife Moira Dillon who are taken prisoner in their own home one night by IRA men. In the morning the captor tells Michael what to do: He is told to drive to the hotel which he’s the manager of, park the car in his reserved parking place and then leave the hotel again. Michael guesses that there’s a bomb in his car and he gets really nervous, but the captor threats him with killing his wife if he does anything wrong. He drives to the hotel and parks the car in his reserved parking place. Through the window he sees that a man called Pottinger is going to deliver his speak of religious hatred. He realizes that his car, with the bomb, is parked right under the head table where Pottinger is going to be and he understands that the whole plan is killing Pottinger. As he walks away he looks inside the hotel and sees a lot of innocent people who had families at home. He walks across the road till a wee shop and asks for a telephone. He rings the police who tell him to alarm the hotel and so he do. Then he drives home in a borrowed car to see if his wife is still alive. She is but she is not glad.

B. Michael Dillon is in a huge dilemma. On the one hand he will not risk the life of his wife but on the other hand a lot of innocent people will die because of the lack of deed from his side, if he does not ring the police as soon as possible. I think he changed his mind and start to think about how he could ring the police, when he looked inside the window of the hotel and saw all the French tourists (p. 4, ll. 92-103). He thinks of the French tourists’ families who is dependent on them and how many people it will move, how many people who will lose a person close to them. He chooses to call the police even though his wife might be killed but the fact that he is going to leave her anyway maybe help him to choose too. I like his choice, because I think it is the most correct to do. He saves a lot of lives without thinking of himself and his family, he thinks of the large number of people who will be missed by their families instead. I do not think that he does not care about his wife’s life, but I think that he is looking at the choices toward each other and even though he is put under pressure he thinks rational and knows that one single person cannot stand against the large number of innocent tourists.

When he reaches home his wife is still alive, but she is not glad to see him. She will not kiss him or say anything to him, not even look at him. I might think that it is because she knows that he chose to let her die instead of the guests on the hotel. Maybe she has figured it out through the Inspector who told her that her husband called the police even thought he knew that she would be killed if he did. Maybe she now knows that he would have left her if this never had happen. Another reason could be that the captors had told her not to move. If she did her husband would be killed and she would not risk that. The chock she became when they got captured has frozen her and she does not dare to move. The captors use their love for each other to threaten them but what the couple do not know is that it is empty threats.

It all ends up with the Inspector giving them an advice: to move to another country in which they will be secure. Michael asks if the people who left Ireland are all right and the Inspector answers: “So far, yes”. Now there are two options for their future: they move to England (or any other country) together and start over or Michael leaves Moira as he planned to.

Well, I hope they will find together because the capture made them closer to each other, they will start over, have some kids and then live happily ever after.