Exploring Mortality, Sexuality, and Humanity in Ferris BeachThrough life's journey, each person experiences events, emotions, and consequences that cannot be explained . Situations don't always turn out for the best, and it's human nature to try to come to some kind of understanding or answer as to why things are the way they are. In Ferris Beach, a coming of age story of a girl, Kate Burns grapples with questions of life and death as she searches for some sort of explanation for her problems. His struggle to understand the events of his life is shown in his exploration of mortality, sexuality, and humanity. Death is always a difficult concept that one must deal with at some point in life. Kate wonders what in the world is and why those close to her are taken away forever by the deaths of Mo Rhodes and her father Fred. On Independence Day, the fateful beginning of the catastrophe, Kate experiences her first problems as an adult. Similar to Jem and Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Kate moves from her innocence to experience with some obvious and some subtle contact with the adult world. As she sits with Misty watching the fireworks, she senses her best friend's troubles. I turned to Misty, ready to ask her why her parents had left, but she sat there hugging her knees with her head tilted back as she stared at the fireworks. heavens...there was something about her silence that made me hold my question, and instead I walked over to her, hugged my knees, and looked up just like she was doing (McCorkle 81-82) . Kate is aware that something has gone wrong but doesn't know exactly what the situation is. Despite the distractions of fireworks, her father's comments, the kids fighting on the beach, and Mrs. Poole's endless chatter, Kate focuses on the bigger (if quiet) thing going on with Misty. The slight hint of disorder in Misty precedes Kate's reaction to Mo's death. Kate, throughout the novel, "looks" at different people, and from her home, she can see into the homes of the Rhodes and the Hucks. She "looks" at Misty's house after Mo's car accident and comments that Misty "...looked so pale" and that the whole family "...got stiff like at the end of a play" (McCorkle 91).