I tend to be quite careful about what I eat and drink. I'm gluten intolerant and choose not to eat meat or animal products, so I usually check labels rather carefully before consuming something. The paper label on the bottle that Alice drinks from seems to say only "DRINK ME" and nothing else. Therefore, in all likelihood, I wouldn't have drank from the bottle as Alice did.
However, if I put myself in Alice's shoes, as it were, I can at least understand why she drinks from the bottle. She has already encountered a talking white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and a pocket watch and has tumbled down a rabbit-hole, past bookshelves, cupboards, and jars of marmalade. If I had met a talking rabbit and fallen down such a strange, surreal rabbit-hole, I might put my usual reservations aside and be tempted to drink from a bottle marked "DRINK ME." Also, of course, when Alice drinks from the bottle, she is trapped in a corridor of locked doors. She needs to find a way out, and in these circumstances I can understand why a strange potion in a mysterious bottle might be appealing.
I think if I were in Alice's position, I probably would not have drunk from the bottle more or less immediately, as she does. I probably would have waited and tried to see if I could force one of the doors open. But if I could find no other way out of the corridor, then I can imagine myself, after enough time has passed, deciding that I might as well see what the potion marked "DRINK ME" would do. I probably would have drank just a little bit of the liquid at first and then waited to see if there were any adverse effects. And then, if there were no apparent adverse effects, I probably would have, like Alice, drank the entire contents of the bottle.
Friday, February 15, 2013
If you were in Alice's place, would you drink the entire contents of the bottle?
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