For a quick, comprehensive analysis, consider beginning in the titular scene. Why does Trond steal horses from the wealthy land owner in town? Because that man has more horses than he can even count, and those horses would change life for his family in drastic ways. His reward for using his own standard of justice is that he gets to ride horses with his father, one sublime moment of communion. But, true independence has its costs.
One cost is that Trond's character is constantly forced to fight of his self-hatred, because his mistakes have been truly grave. By ignoring the common wisdom he might have learned from his father (if there had been peace during his childhood) would have given him immunization against certain kinds of pain, like the pain of playing with a gun as a child and accidentally murdering one of your friends. That horror could have been avoided if Trond's life wasn't so confusing and frustrating.
The stakes of life are death, it seems from this book. In light of death, he feels entitled to get the life he feels naturally entitled to. But, without the socialization of group trust, he becomes more and more isolated. He finally finds a way to survive the deaths of his wife and parents, but after a long, difficult life, he finds he is unsuited for life in big community. The consequences of his independence are existential loneliness, but also true freedom and a real chance at finding peace.
