Remote island imagery
The florid imagery of this tropical, mythic island provides the backdrop for an epic story. The story is unusual, as the setting suggests, and just as an island can be remote and removed from mainstream life, taking on qualities all its own, this story takes on its own flavor. The island makes an echo-chamber where the characters can be brought to their ultimate forms. They are not held back by normalcy or civilization.
Family imagery
The idea of marriage and family is clear from the beginning of the story. Louis and Emily have a baby boy, and their families are merged, leading to a complex social web of people getting to know each other. In the meantime, single people are trying to find the right person to start a family with, and the whole cast debates how much authority a family should have in the life of a couple. Family is both a gift and a dilemma.
Chaos and disorder
If the family and honor systems of the first half of the novel are a portrait of life within the order of society, then the second half of the novel features the imagery of life without that order. This chaotic imagery involves social dilemmas arising from betrayal, cheating spouses, kidnapped children, and ultimately death. These social and natural problems are shown to be powerful and destructive. This imagery shows a force that works against social order, for better and worse.
Morality and social norms
With a cast of characters like this, there is no getting around the problem of judgment. They judge one another for their behavior, and although sometimes that judgment stems from a desire for order, sometimes it derives from disappointment, shame, confusion, anger—all are on the table, especially when people disobey the social norms of their day. Abstractly, the depiction is of morality as a network of social expectations either obeyed or disobeyed.
