Response to “Manners of Dying”

Manners of Dying are composed of many letters from Ms. Harry Parlington, a warden at the Cantos Correctional Institution, to Mrs. Barlow, the mother of the criminal Kevin. In the letters, the warden describes how Kevin faces his execution of death in the last 12 hours. All the letters are just similar versions that include Kevin’s last dinner, Father Preston’s services, Periodic checks, another Father Preston’s services, the judgment reading, process of corridor, last words, and the type of death. The difference places are Kevin’s manners and feelings.

I don’t think it’s a good fiction. The reason is that the fiction does not make my heart sink or soar. The letters are showed with ambiguity. There are so many versions filled with too many possibilities. Is he very calm, anger or sad? I don’t know what’s the real manner of Kevin when he faces his death and which one the warden sends to Kevin’s mother. I just feel nothing of the stories because it lacks of a turning point to a “new world”. The common people take granted that people do the bad things should be punished, which is the reason of the existence of the law. Kevin does the crime, so he has to confess his sins and pay for it.

Maybe the author wants to show us the reality of how different people face the punishment by the different versions of Kevin.