Things start to go right for Deven, but this doesn’t mean that all is well. As he pointed out in the last scene, the real problem is that he has no
control over his own life—even positive developments, like this one, are merely things that happen
to him. His suspicion that others may be trapping him is actually wiser than he realizes—while readers will never entirely learn if it’s correct, it does foreshadow the end of the novel in a meaningful way. And the library’s explanation for releasing the funds shows that the college cares more about new technology than about Deven’s research.