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
Death-Cast called Delilah Gray two hours ago with the news that she’s dying today, but Delilah doesn’t believe it—this must be a prank that her ex-fiancé Victor, a Death-Cast employee, is playing on her. That’s very illegal, and she can’t believe he’d do it. She deletes the email receipt of her call with her herald and thinks about calling Victor, but she decides not to—she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being paranoid. Delilah vows to not second-guess her day, just as she didn’t second-guess calling off her engagement.
While Mateo and Rufus make the choice to live their last day to the fullest because they know that they’re dying, Delilah does the opposite: she vows to live because she’s convinced she’s not dying. Her choice to believe that she’s not dying is a survival mechanism that allows her to get through the day—otherwise, it’s possible she’d go through her final hours terrified and unable to live her life to the fullest.
Themes
Delilah admires her technicolor hair, which her boss thinks is too bright, and opens her laptop. She’s supposed to write a season premiere recap for the show Hipster House, and she knows she’s lucky to have grunt work so that the real writers can cover the “respected franchises.” She turns on the TV to watch the premiere again, but the news catches her eye. A news anchor says that the 25-year-old Howie Maldonado, the star of the Scorpius Hawthorne films, is dying today. Delilah leaps up—she’s going to report on this story.
Rather than having to conduct interviews with friends or families of celebrities after a celebrity’s death, news establishments can now interview celebrities knowing it’ll be the last time—which makes these interviews all the more valuable. Delilah’s desire to report on this story reads as somewhat callous. A person is dying, even if he’s a celebrity, and he deserves respect and dignity like anyone else.
Themes
