How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
I knew pain had stopped him, but I knew he would go on talking as soon as he got himself in hand. He meant to die as he had lived, inside the same tough shell. Talking could be torture, but he wouldn't stop on that account, not while anybody was there to see him. He was Reno Starkey who could take anything the world had without batting an eye, and he would play it out that way to the end. (27.85)
In the final minutes of his life, Reno refuses to let down his masculine façade. This is one of the rare passages that underlines how masculinity is mostly all an act: Reno won't stop talking tough as long as there's anyone around to see him (meaning he will always be performing his tough guy act if there's an audience). The fact that Reno will "play it out that way" until his last dying breath suggests that the men in this world wouldn't know how to survive without their hard exterior shell.