Though Katey doesn’t state this explicitly until the epilogue, choice is at the root of the novel. Katey believes that the choices people make become a path which leads a person forward. Luck can have a hand in this or God, but those choices make or break people; all choices come with a price. For instance, Katey chooses early on to let Eve have dibs on Tinker. Their friendship must then weather Katey also having feelings for Tinker but not wanting to do anything about it because of Eve’s “claim” on him. When they get into an accident and Eve is disfigured, Tinker chooses to remain by Eve’s side due to guilt. Though the two see each other again, Katey chooses not to pursue Tinker despite him kissing her. She’s made a choice not to get in the way of him and Eve, even though the reader knows that this isn’t what Katey (or Tinker) truly wants. Tinker also makes a choice when he agrees to be Anne’s paid lover. He views this as his way to move up in the world. Sadly, he also chooses not to be honest with Katey, which ultimately backfires. To Katey, Tinker has chosen to be a fiction, not like Wallace. The choice is also tinged with belief, as people make choices based off of the hypothetical outcome. Katey thinks that Tinker was delusional to believe that his choice in being bought by Anne would end in anything other than a disaster. Though Katey chooses to despise him, she is soon chastised by both Dicky and Hank. Dicky shows her that Tinker chose to advance himself, which is admirable in itself. He’s also someone who lives by rules that most people could never abide by. Hank also reveals that Tinker just makes the wrong choices in wanting to be a part of society more than following his own heart and convictions. Katey eventually chooses to forgive Tinker, and though the two don’t end up together (Katey chooses her own convictions over following Tinker into the unknown), Katey is able to make the gracious choice of forgiving him.

The novel focuses heavily on photographic moments. The preface opens with a Walker Evans exhibit in 1966. The photos had been taken over 20 years prior, but Evans was concerned with the intimate subject matter. To take the photos, Evans used a hidden camera to capture subway riders in New York. Unaware of the camera’s gaze, the people in the photos are relaxed and therefore reveal their true selves. Mason stresses the power of photography when he admits that it’s a static moment which holds tremendous power. For Evans, photography reveals the truth of an individual stripped of all pretentions. For Mason, photography also holds the power of suggestion. 

For example, Mason and Katey look at a photo of Bette Davis feeding cake to a younger, married man. The look on his wife’s face can be interpreted as sheer jealousy. Photos like this will drive the suggestiveness and allure of Mason’s glamor magazine, Gotham. Evans’s exhibit—Many are Called—unnerves Katey. She’s in the latter half of middle age, and the people that she sees in the photos call out to her like ghosts. Though many of the younger people at the exhibit don’t pay much attention to the photos themselves, Katey eventually sees two photos of Tinker: one from 1938 and one from 1939. The earlier photo shows a handsome, composed, and stern Tinker.

The latter photo shows an unshaven and down-on-his-luck Tinker, but he looks happy. Based on Evans’s attempt with his collection, these photos reveal the inner truth of Tinker. In the latter photo, he’s truly happy despite his reversal of fortune. The photo of Tinker on Wallace’s wall also provides a glimpse into Tinker’s nature. The photo was taken at St. George’s when Wallace and Tinker were young. In the photo, Tinker appears twice. He stood in one space and then ran to the other side before the exposure caught up to him. This double echoes the two versions of Tinker on display in the museum in 1966 and sends home the message that people aren’t always who they appear to be. Katey also notes the differences in photos in wealthy houses versus those in working-class houses. Photos in wealthy houses are nostalgic of places and times, while photos in working-class houses symbolize the struggle and remembrance of individuals.

The book’s title, Rules of Civility, pays homage to George Washington’s title for his maxims on the subject. Tinker receives a copy of Washington’s book as a teenager and pours over the maxims. He goes so far as to underline passages, intent on being the perfect person in his climb up the social ladder. Tinker keeps the book with him and speaks of it fondly. When his affair with Anne discovered, however, he leaves the book behind when he sets out for paths unknown. Tinker once believed that he needed to follow the rules to appear likable and get what he wanted. After Katey realizes that he’s Anne’s paid lover, he ends his fascination with civility rules and follows another course. He takes up Thoreau’s beliefs in simple truths and simple living, finding that this course of action is the most civil and authentic.

Katey also follows rules of civility as she makes her way up the social ladder in New York. Though not as driven as Tinker, Katey wants to at least gain everything once before she lets it all go. Katey is a shrewd woman who knows how to play the game. She moves through life based on calculated choices, and these choices almost always harken back to some sense of civility. Though she initially engages others with what she believes is a civil way of operating, she too comes to realize that she must find what works best for her. After all, she’s the one who introduced Tinker to Thoreau’s simple way of approaching the world. Katey’s rules of civility are also tempered by her friend Wallace. Wallace is from old money, so he sees no need to abide by starch rules. He treats everyone with respect, regardless of their station in life.

Katey experiences the melting pot of New York on a daily basis. Though this is preCivil Rights, Katey watches the immigrants of the city struggling to maintain their autonomy even while blending into each other. Walking away from Charlotte one evening, she looks at the tenements, and how the streets change from group to group despite selling much of the same goods. As Katey sees it, everyone is striving in this New York of the Great Depression. The narrative’s pages are filled with blacks, Russians, and other groups that color the experiences of Katey and her friends. Katey, it turns out, is herself from Russian stock. Her name is Katya, though she goes by Katey to blend in, and her father and uncle came to America from Russia.

Though her father reportedly burned all their Russian money on arrival to symbolize that he wanted nothing more to do with Russia, it is this dream of determination that fuels Katey to suddenly quit her job at Quiggin & Hale. The magazine Katey works for runs an ad seeking gossip from former doormen to the rich and famous. The ad garners interest from Italians, blacks, and Russians, plus many more, who all have a story to tell. The narrative affirms that even though minorities weren’t allowed into the upper strata of society at the time, their stories, hopes, and dreams were just as real and relevant.

The narrative also gives a nod to multiculturalism when Katey explains how Eve flirts with the jazz players (who are labeled as Negroes in the narrative) for smokes. Though Katey thought that Eve was just being rebellious due to her upper-class upbringing in Indiana, Katey is informed by a black man in a club that Eve truly had an ear for jazz. Katey realizes that she pegged her friend wrong and that Eve truly had an ear for a type of music born out of struggle.