The gem is brought out from the Priest""s Refuge on he night before it must be sold, and set on a table:It looks like a piece of sky that has become solid, with sunlight imprisoned in it.[As he enters, background music appropriately plays: "It""s a Most Unusual Day."]One of his friends alludes to his heavy drinking habits: "You may be slow in starting, but there""s nobody faster coming down the homestretch.He asserts to Lon:Hud: "It was the best hing.He was wore out and he knew it....Tryin"" to get up, hurtin"" himself.He couldn""t have made it.Lonnie, any way in this world, he couldn""t have made it another hour....You don""t know the whole story.Yeah, him and me fought many and many a round together.But I guess you could say that I helped him about as much as he ever helped me."Lon: (questioning Hud""s sincerity and complicity) "How did you help him, Hud? By tryin"" to sell him out? By takin"" the heart out of him? By makin"" him give up and quit? Is that how you helped him?"In the final scene, Lon walks off from he ranch in disgust as he speaks to Hud driving next to him in his car, and decides not to follow his ways: "I""m goin"" somewhere else and work for awhile if I can happen onto a job.The film""s hemes include the central importance of the family, the suffering and oppression of the farmers, the hollowness of the American Dream, he display of human dignity and spirit in the face of adversity, and issues of social and economic justice.