The recurring theme or message in the Rulfo's "The Man" is that the cycle of violence and revenge, once started, never ends. Victim and perpetrator merge into one, and the ripples spread out to include others.

In this story, Urquidi chases Jose, determined he will kill him for murdering his family while they slept. However, during the course of the chase, we learn that Urquidi is not innocent: he killed Jose's brother, which is why Jose sought revenge. The men cannot be divided into the "good guy" and the "bad guy": each is a mirror image of the other. Each loves his family, and yet each has killed a member of another family. Each man raises our sympathy for having been wronged and yet repels us because of his own wrongdoing.

We don't know what started the cycle of violence. Why did Urquidi kill Jose's brother? We don't find out, and we don't how far back the cycle of vengeance goes. What is important is not why the men are killing but that they are caught in a senseless cycle of violence. (In this way, the story is similar to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.)

At the end of the story, the cycle has rippled out ever further to catch the shepherd, who is being investigated with the suspicion of abetting a murderous fugitive, even though the shepherd didn't know that Jose was a killer. In a sense, therefore, Rulfo seems to be implying, all of Mexico is swept up in the cycle of violence that seems to have no end.