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
Rufus says he loves Mateo too. If Rufus hadn’t worked so hard to be the person he’s become over the course of the day, he’d punch something. Rufus is angry that the world is so cruel—he asks if finding each other is what killed them. Mateo insists that their story isn’t just that they met, fell in love, and died; they were going to die today anyway, but they kept each other alive. He climbs into Rufus’s lap and says that the story is that they met, fell in love, and lived. Mateo suggests that it might be better to have gotten things right and been happy for a day instead of wrong for a longer life. Rufus thinks that Mateo is right. They lie down and Rufus kisses Mateo.
Rufus may have turned himself around and become the friend and romantic partner that he’s always wanted to be, but that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t feel anger and the desire to be violent sometimes. His anger, though, is justified: it’s heartbreaking that good, loveable people like Rufus and Mateo are still going to die young. But understanding that they’re mortal will ideally encourage readers to take the boys’ lessons to heart and live their own lives to the fullest.
Themes
