The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

Frankie’s blue strings are a significant symbol of the interconnectedness of every life. Carmencita first receives the strings as a gift, and she is told that they have lives inside them, a fact confirmed by Music in the last chapter. At first, Frankie believes that it’s his guitar playing that alters the lives of the people around him. This is because the first string turned blue after Frankie’s guitar playing saved Aurora’s life. By the end of the novel, however, Music reveals that “it was not his playing that turned them blue; it was his heart” (487).

Carmencita receives the strings because of the kindness she showed to strangers, and Aurora posits that Frankie received the strings because he showed kindness to the six dead strangers when they first met. Later, Frankie’s strings turned blue when he committed a selfless act to help another person; while this was sometimes connected to his guitar playing, as was the case when he saved Aurora’s life, at other times it wasn’t. When he talked the doctors into saving Hampton’s life, or when he threw his guitar case over Ellis to save him from the bomb shrapnel, it was desire to save their lives and the resulting actions he took that turned the strings blue.