Everybody does it

Everybody does it is Sullivan’s claim that eating people is commonplace, voiced while he holds Maren at knifepoint. Maren challenges the claim and turns the exchange toward the danger Sullivan faces from Lee, making the phrase a contest over whether monstrous behavior can be treated as ordinary.

Meaning and Use

Sullivan presents the idea as something he has already told Maren, implying that eating people is not exceptional. His claim follows a story about a man who supposedly ate his own mother, though Sullivan allows that the man may have said so merely to provoke a reaction. The anecdote leaves the claim’s factual basis uncertain even as Sullivan uses it to project fearlessness.

The Exchange with Maren

Maren counters that Lee might have eaten his own father and can certainly handle Sullivan. Sullivan responds with the assertion that everybody does it, folding Lee’s possible past into a supposed universal practice. Maren carefully rejects that logic: she tells Sullivan he knows what will happen if he eats her, because Lee will then eat him. She describes Lee as someone who eats people the world is better off without, turning Sullivan’s generalization into a specific warning.

Narrative Function

The phrase works as more than a statement about how many people eat others. In this confrontation, Sullivan uses it to make the behavior sound ordinary, while Maren refuses to let that supposed normality erase the immediate stakes. The exchange ends under pressure: Maren hears footsteps approaching and recognizes Lee, while a key turns and Lee calls to her from outside. Sullivan’s broad claim cannot settle the danger at hand; the scene instead narrows toward the threatened encounter between him and Lee.