"Would You Rather?"

9. What does the game "Would You Rather?" show abut girls, especially the one girl who wants to play it?

Curiosity is a major part of growing up. Judgments are made among teenagers and everyone wants to know what is deemed as acceptable in the eyes of another. The approval that girls seek from one another to be in their group socially puts pressure on girls to pick the “right” answer during these questions. If you do not play as seen in Ensler’s poem “Would You Rather?” you are seen as weird and “no fun” by girl 1 judged by your answer or lack there of. There is something exciting about asking strange questions of a friend to figure out how far they would go with something and what they would do in a certain situation. There is also a shock factor if the person’s answer is not the same as yours. Girl two finally makes progress by telling girl one how she feels in (III) when she says, “all your questions are really depressing me” and “I want different questions. I hate these choices. I hate my life” It is here that the readers see that girl two has some of these horrible choices to make in her life. They are very real to her and teens make choices like these everyday. Her parents could be divorced and she really doesn’t want to choose. She may be facing all of the sex questions that girl one has asked.  Being a teen and a girl require many choices to be made and maybe girl one is also facing some of the problems she has inquired about well knowing that the second girl has experienced things about sex, family life, and social clichés that she wants answers to in order to figure out how to deal with them on her own. If she knew that this girl dealt with these things then she shouldn’t have asked and girls are cruel if she had no real intention other than to make her talk about choices she has had to make which could be a possibility. She also could have been from another cliché herself sent by other girls to find out how girl two would answer questions so she was on a fishing expedition for information. Once the girl started crying she felt bad for what she was doing and stopped pressing her for answers. She did have a heart and comfort her probably because she knows what it is like to have to live with difficult situations and choices as a teen.