White String

Cat's Cradle

There's so much white string in this book, you could crochet enough doilies for the next royal wedding. We first see white string as one of the bits of flotsam in the river Brod after Trachim B's wagon accident. White string also holds the mysterious abacus bead around Yankel's neck (we never learn exactly why he wears it). Finally, every Trachimday day "canopies of thin white string spanned the narrow dirt arteries of Trachimbrod" (13.51). They make connections between candlesticks, clotheslines, doorknobs, fountains, and more.

What's the fascination with white string? Do they not want to forget the oatmeal when they grocery shopping? 

We think the string symbolizes the connections between people, and the trails they leave through the lives, as they go from one place to another. (Kind of like the liquid spears in Donnie Darko which show where people are going, not where they've been.) The outlier is the white string around Yankel's neck. It's not connected to anything… but that makes sense too. After all, he's isolated from the community.

Jonathan makes the connection between string and memory when he says, "Children had it the worst of all […] Their strings were not even their own, but tied around them by parents and grandparents—strings not fastened to anything, but hanging loosely from the darkness" (32.7). In other words, children inherit the string of their parents, and it's up to children (like Jonathan and Alex) to follow, untangle, and make stories of the string.

Or, if they're really bored, Jacob's Ladder.