Freedom

Walter Berglund was an aspiring filmmaker and actor before marrying Patty. However, he was so taken with Patty when they were dating and after their marriage that Walter threw himself into doing whatever he thought she would want. Whatever makes her happy is what makes him happy, or so he thinks.

Walter is a fundamentally good person, even though he can be impulsive and acquires a temper over the course of the narrative. Late in the novel, he turns to birds for solace. When Patty is mourning her father’s death, she thinks of Walter and his devotion to birds:

She now sorely regretted the hard time she'd given him about his crusades for other species; she saw that he'd done it out of envy—envy of his birds for being so purely lovable to him, and envy of Walter himself for his capacity to love them. She wished she could go to him now, while he was still alive, and say it to him plainly: I adore you for your goodness (514).

Patty understands that Walter is almost completely good. He is like many of the animals in the novel. Even though nature can be cruel, animals, like Walter, do not go out of their way to harm each other and cause unnecessary suffering.