Chapter 8, Death Summary and Analysis

This chapter is comprised of only two sentences. "I don't believe in it, because you're not around to know that it's happened. I can't say anything about it because I'm not prepared for it" (p. 123).

Andy is no different from most other people in his denial of death or unwillingness to discuss it. The brevity of the chapter is a literary form of someone changing the topic of a conversation due to its uncomfortable nature. Symbolically, this abrupt style in a book filled with rambling statements mimics the sometimes abrupt nature of death that occurs while people are living their lives and are caught up short by death's appearance. Perhaps Andy enjoyed the artistic allusion he created here or maybe he simply was unwilling to discuss the topic in any detail, making him more human and average than he...