Family and community
Will spends this novel contemplating the various ways that he encounters his community. That means belonging to his own family, and making peace with various people despite the drama that separates them from each other, and it also means mitigating the scandal that arises when his grandfather remarries only a few weeks after his wife dies. Because he can see the grandfather through the dual imageries of family and community, he manages to understand his motivations and forgive him for moving on so quickly. He also learns to understand why other people disapprove.
The growth of love
Something ironic and deeply beautiful occurs within the emotional imagery of Rucker and Love's marriage. Will sees their marriage an emotionally spare and distant agreement; Love will take care of Rucker until he dies and then inherit the estate. That is a fairly loveless model for marriage, but what happens is that their blunt honesty about their intentions leads Love and Rucker to trust one another, and when the community opposes them, the shared suffering brings their marriage close, leading to the birth of true love.
Will's experience of marriage
Will can be seen as a pillar of innocence, and his grandfather with all his years of experience and his disregard for social convention can be seen as a pillar of experience and independent thought. Will is his grandfather's foil in this way, and so the imagery of marriage affects Will through the lens of innocence. That perspective shows marriage as a kind of loyalty mechanism; the grandfather is loyal to his new bride despite public opinion, and at the end of the novel, Will realizes that he also loves Love as family.
Death
The final imagery of the book sets the stage for adult experience and fully awakened adult consciousness. Will understands death at the beginning of the novel as something painful but remote. When his uncle kills himself, he is suddenly reminded of the constant presence of death. This is part of his coming of age, no doubt, and it also foreshadows the death of Rucker. At the funeral, he learns that his grandfather has a son on the way; he and his young wife conceived before pneumonia took his life. This imagery is the counterpoint to romance. As Rucker might have argued, why not do what one wants to do if at the end, we all die?
