Response to “Manners of Dying”

Manners of Dying is composed of nine letters with the similar plot about how Kevin Barlow faced up to his execution. These letters are told in the voice of the director of Cantos Correctional Institution. Although it makes my heart sinks, I think it is a good fiction.

It describes a lot of manners of dying, such as died generally by hanging, took his own life by “asphyxiation caused by forcing down his throat a potato dropped into one of his socks,” etc. These manners include suicide, accidental death, and natural causes. In the back of any of manner, Kevin’s attitudes to face up his execution are distinct. However, these plots are not attractive to me. Honestly, they are boring. The only thing I would like to focus on is that the attitudes of Harry Parlington, the director of Canto. Whatever processes that Kevin goes through, Harry gives me an impress of apathy. I can’t believe his words that they don’t use violence when Kevin revolts. He described the death as usual events. And he shakes hands with Kevin sometimes before the execution, which just likes a usual manner of farewell. In my opinion, these words are ruthless to a mother, especially after her kid is dead. If I am the mother, I don’t want to know what my kid eat what my kid do before his execution. How sad she is when she receives those letters. What a lugubrious mother. Moreover, this fiction also makes me miss my mother. Life is tragic but also precious. Even he is a prisoner under sentence of death.