Diving into the Waters of the Moon

Middle-aged people are portrayed as functioning multiple roles within their family. They are parents of their children, sons or daughters of their parents; they work to finance their family. They contribute to their family. They take care of their children, support their parents. They are supposed to supply warmth to their family members not only on the aspect of finance, what is the most important, but also on the aspect of family affection. However, not all the middle-aged people really intend to contribute to their family. In the short story “Diving into Waters of the Moon” written by Kenneth Radu, Daniel’s parents are hypocritical and self-involved people who love themselves only; they ignore their family members` emotions although their family members need warmth and support from them.
Daniel’s parents, Calvin and Jewel, are hypocritical people. Daniel’s parents pretend to make “a lot of hard decisions” (3). However, the “hard decisions” are not hard to make. Instead, they have planned these decisions on purpose to get a fortune. Calvin and Jewel made a “hard decision” to persuade Daniel’s grandmother to move to a nursing home. As a result, Calvin successfully “convinced her to relinquish control of a surprisingly large financial portfolio to her son” (3). Calvin finally got a good fortune from his mother which gives him a great benefit by selling his mother`s house and managing her accounts and investments even if “after deducting the cost of her maintenance and his related expenses” (3). For Daniel’s sister`s death, Calvin and Jewel “lamented” (3) for deciding not to proceed with another operation to save her life. However, when they tell Daniel about his sister`s death, “their faces flushed from exertion and relief, the way they always looked after completing strenuous tasks like house-cleaning or sex on Sunday morning”. The facial emotions show that they have decided not to take such a heavy burden even if it is their daughter. The relief of their