Drowning and Red Bean Ice

As the old saying goes, in this world nothing can be said to be sure, except death and taxes. Even everyone knows their life must have an end, but most of them still fear the death. In the short stories, A Drowning by Mark Ferguson and Red Bean Ice by Nancy Lee, authors have demonstrated the reaction and feeling of people to death. In these two stories, the characters are unlike the other person when death comes. They are both calm facing to death, and they are all insisting their hope. However, the reaction of people around them for their death is different. Firstly, both of characters in the short stories are very calm before their death. In the story “A Drowning”, the narrator in a boat saw a man who falls into the sea. This man tries hard to survive and stays on the top of the water, but the swells still pick him down into the sea. The drowning man is in a very danger situation, the water can make him die at any moment. Normally, people should feel terror and nerves in this type of situation, but this man reacts very quiet. “He looks so calm floating in the water, beautiful. As the beginning of the swell reached him, rising, I saw him treading calmly...” (A Drowning 3). The quotation proves that the man does not feel any fear when the swell arrived. He seems accepted his death. Similar to the drowning, in the story” Red Bean Ice”, Nancy’s mother has the same attitude before her death. In Nancy’s last visit, her mother sets on the bed with her grand-daughter. When the death is coming to Nancy’s mother, she is very relax and calm, “My mother lies back, eyes closed, soothing my daughter into sleep, patting her small though in a gentle rhythm. She holds my daughter against her and sings an old Cantonese lullaby. Her thin voice, a sweet delicate melody” (Red Bean Ice). The quote shows that Nancy’s mother has not receive any fear or painful when death comes toward her. She dies peacefully with a small on her face. In conclusion, by compare these two short