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Rufus, 6:48 a.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
Peck didn’t receive a call from Death-Cast today, so he’s not dying. He expected the call before Rufus got his, though. Peck presses a frozen hamburger patty to his face and thinks that he shouldn’t have left Aimee in the street. He called her and argued, but they hung up when Aimee said she wanted to see Rufus again. Peck used to follow a certain code with people like Rufus—Rufus’s prospects don’t look good if he’s still alive when Peck wakes up.
Because Peck isn’t dying today, he feels as though he can make choices (like to kill Rufus) that might ruin his life—consequences other than death don’t seem so bad. In the world of the novel, it seems that for some characters, death has taken over as the only real reason to take stock of their choices.
Themes
