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Dalma Young, 6:20 p.m.
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in They Both Die at the End, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mortality, Life, and Meaning
Human Connection and Social Media
Choices and Consequences
Friendship and Chosen Family
Business, Ethics, and Dehumanization
Summary
Analysis
Mateo and Rufus sit against a wall, holding hands. Mateo wants to be somewhere safe, and he admits that he’d never hit anyone before punching Peck. Rufus tells him that punching someone who has a gun is stupid, but Mateo doesn’t regret it. Mateo imagines watching Rufus die and thinks that this connection is the last thing he expected when they met. He starts to cry and says he already misses Lidia and the Plutos. Rufus says they can’t risk their lives again, and Mateo agrees, but he says that he’d like to go home where he’s safe. He’s starting to feel panicky, and he knows that there’s a difference between living fearlessly and knowing that he should be afraid. Rufus agrees to go.
Especially as the evening wears on, things begin to seem even scarier—the odds of the boys dying are getting higher by the minute. That Mateo didn’t expect this kind of a connection is understandable, but it also suggests that he didn’t fully grasp what social media could do before today. Now, he realizes that it’s a tool that he can use to build his community and connect intimately with people—but only if he chooses to be brave and take his connections offline.
Themes
