Summary
"Winter" begins with Jack at an event for his uncle, presidential candidate Anthony Rollins. It's being broadcasted on television and is his campaign's largest event to date. At this point, Jack has told his father about the string switch with Javier, and that he's a long-stringer. His father is glad his son doesn't have a short string but is horrified about what the truth could do to their family legacy. However, Jack reminds his father that his grandpa Cal always said the camaraderie between brothers is the most important part of the army, thus justifying the half-truth he told his father: that the switch was to support his friend Javier. Jack plans to interrupt the event and tell the world the truth about his uncle. Upon going on stage, he turns over the pin of two strings twirling around each other that he saw Lea wearing. Minutes into his uncle's speech, Jack takes the mic and warns the audience that his uncle doesn't care about short-stringers, he only cares about winning, and says that we're all humans, despite our strings. His action affects Anthony's numbers with young undecided voters, but not his core demographic of older long-stringers who are afraid of short-stringers.
We meet Amie again one month after she has been disinvited from Nina's wedding, with only one month remaining until the wedding. Amie realizes she was projecting her feelings and fears regarding Ben onto Nina, and decides to make things right with Nina before the wedding. Amie ends up being just in time because days after she shows up at Nina's door apologizing profusely, she is re-invited to the wedding. Because of her timing, she's invited to the new, even sooner wedding dinner.
A girl in South Africa gives a speech about the strings and her speech goes viral. #StrungTogether begins trending, leading to employers pledging to hire more short-stringers and a town in Canada offering public string-length identifications so the community can provide more support and kindness to short-stringers. This speech sparks something and leads Maura to skip a day of last-minute wedding planning with Nina to attend the rally in Washington DC at the same time as a Rollins fundraiser. Nina attends the wedding-planning appointments alone, and twenty thousand people arrive at the rally. When Maura comes home, she's met with a slice of cake from the cake-tasting Nina attended, with a note underneath from Nina agreeing that they don't need an elaborate party. Nina asks Maura to marry her on Monday in two days at City Hall.
Before Nina and Maura's wedding, we learn that Maura thought that after learning Maura was a short-stringer, Nina wouldn't propose, and Maura wouldn't propose either because she didn't want to put Nina in a weird position. At the Marriage Bureau, which is next to the building where one's birth and death certificates are released, Nina and Maura get married and the couple behind them are their witnesses. Afterward, they meet their family and close friends at a nearby restaurant. This is the moment when Amie sees Ben for the first time since learning that he is "-B," the short-stringer she has been exchanging letters with. During Nina's surprise first dance to the song Unforgettable, Amie decides to speak to Ben. She scratches her original plan of asking if they can be friends once she sees him laughing and happy with other girls from his support group, and instead asks him to dance.
During Amie's dance with Ben, she sees their future together clearly. But along with the good times, she pictures the worst time—his death. She's overwhelmed and runs out the back door of the restaurant. Feeling incapable compared to those around her, especially the short-stringers around her, she remembers Nina telling her that she doesn't know what she's capable of. She is trying to decide what to do when she hears a song that brings her back to the present. The man she hasn't heard since the arrival of the strings, the one who rides around NYC on his bicycle playing "Que Sera, Sera" on his speakers, comes through her area. She hears the song blasting from his speakers and can't believe it. She runs towards the sound to find him and she's in awe. Similar to what Nina experiences when she proposes to Maura, a gust of wind invigorates Amie, and she decides she needs to find Ben.
Jack goes to an New Year's Eve party with some friends and sees Javier for the first time since he left early for pilot training. He notices how Javier looks different and even carries himself differently. Everyone around him is engaged in listening to his stories from pilot training. We also learn Jack has begun his desk job in DC. The party is interrupted when Wes Johnson posts a short address that seems to be an admission of defeat. The party splits between people who love Johnson and those who see Anthony as a more capable candidate. Jack and Javier slip out to a veteran's bar nearby where they apologize to each other in time for the New Year's countdown.
#StrungTogether hubs spring up in two dozen cities, in locations announced a mere three days prior. The organizers are anonymous, though some prominent people are suspected. Members from the short-stringers group, along with Amie and Nina, attend the hub in Times Square. At one minute past nine o'clock in NYC, concurrent with waking hours throughout the world, the billboard screens light up with a video thanking short-strings who are still with us for their contributions. These contributions range from saving two hundred lives during surgery to marrying their high school sweethearts. This message is broadcasted live across platforms and reminds everyone how much we can come together. During the rally, Lea goes into labor. The group encircles her, pushing their way through the crowd to the street. They hail a cab, and Maura accompanies her to the hospital. The entire way to the hospital Lea gushes about how grateful she is to have these babies and what a wonderful father her brother will make. The twins are born soon after arriving at the hospital—a boy and a girl, with everyone from the support group, along with Amie, Nina, and Lea's brother and brother-in-law in tow.
Analysis
In "Winter" a girl from South Africa who will be receiving her string soon gives a rousing speech that goes viral. In her speech, she mentions having seen the video of Jack. This, along with the way the effects of this video sprawl across several point-of-views, exemplify the theme of interconnectedness within The Measure. The case of the teacher at Connelly Academy who was fired after bravely giving a presentation to her senior class in support of short-stringers also supports this theme of interconnectedness. We see that her action wasn't in vain because Maura discovers the poster the teacher threw away later that evening when leaving the support group and treasures it, hanging it up in her apartment and feeling grateful that someone created a poster to defend short-stringers amidst all the fear-mongering around short-stringers. The #StrungTogether movement takes shape, with rallies with large turnouts throughout the country. Ben references the current events reminding him of Newton's third law, which further supports this theme of interconnectedness in the book: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Forces always come in pairs (p. 281). The South African girl's speech has a large effect. Rollins's speech awakened something in people, and so did hers.
Nina and Maura decide to have a civil ceremony, which takes place at the Marriage Bureau. The Marriage Bureau is near the building that distributes birth and death certificates. The positioning of the buildings is a metaphor for marriage, as Maura explains in her point of view: it represents how couples vow to support each other over the whole course of their lives, up until death (p. 286). We see further anthropomorphization of the strings when we learn that Maura thought her string would prevent Nina from ever proposing to her. She feels that after everything the strings have taken away from her, this marriage is something she could still have (p. 287). Her string, a symbol of life, is anthropomorphized as something that can steal things away from her—she can't have children because she'd worry about leaving them behind, and she may never find a job she loves. However, there is an instance of dramatic irony here. We know that Maura doesn't want kids, because she confesses that it's only now that she doesn't have the option to have children that she regrets not being able to make that decision for herself. Further, Nina proposed spontaneously after thinking about the short-stringer girl who died on her wedding night in Italy. If anything, Maura's string is facilitating more closeness with others and certainty about what she does want—including Nina having the opportunity to demonstrate the depth of her commitment to her.
At Nina and Maura's wedding, Amie spots Ben across the room and abandons her original plan to ask to stay friends and instead asks him to dance. She uses a simile to describe her relief when he says yes—that the relief warmed her body like sunlight (p. 290). When dancing with Ben, Amie can see the future clearly in her mind's eye: the good times, and the inevitable sorrow. She runs out on him and into the street behind the restaurant. She's confused about what to do next when she remembers Nina telling her she's more capable than she thinks (p.293). Suddenly, the text alludes to a letter she wrote to Ben. The man she wrote about biking around NYC playing "Que sera, sera" who she hadn't heard since the arrival of the strings bikes through. She hears the song, and the man on the bike playing this song is a motif for hope. She can't believe her ears: this sighting invigorates her the way the air in Italy gave Nina the impetus to propose to Maura. She goes to Ben, and they begin their relationship together.
The strings are anthropomorphized frequently throughout The Measure, including in "Winter." Maura anthropomorphizes her string as something that has stolen things from her (p. 287), but the love she shares with Nina allows them to overcome their strings (p. 287). Similarly, from Jack's point of view, we see people around him divided on Anthony Rollins. Some see that although he's not the best person, he's tough and honest. They feel he can get stuff done, and believe he can keep America safe with an "iron string" (p. 300). This turn of phrase, which alludes to the more common saying "an iron fist," is another instance of transformed everyday situations that reveal the strings' effect on society. To rule with an iron fist means to lead cruelly and strictly. The quote "Anthony the defender. Guardian of the long-stringers. The man who would keep America safe, who would rule with an iron string" (p. 30) suggests someone who's cruel and leverages his string, or his guaranteed long life, to rule without fear of death, which Americans conflate with will and courage. In this context, courage means not being afraid to be cruel to short-stringers on behalf of long-stringers. Anthony knows his life is safe because he has a long string. So identifying him as courageous contradicts the usual definition of courage which requires an element of the unknown, which the strings override in this case.
The theme of living on from "Autumn" is further expounded upon in "Winter" when Nihal shares with Ben that his idea of reincarnation has changed. His parents tried to comfort him about the length of his string by citing reincarnation and suggesting that in his next life, he can have a long string. Nihal says Lea's pregnancy changed his mind because she sees her about to give birth and wonders where the souls of the babies come from. He explains that there's a possibility these are returning souls, so anything is possible (p. 280). This makes Ben think of the woman to who Hank donated his lungs, which he sees as proof of interconnectedness between people, even if they've never met. These points of view of Ben and Nihal illustrate the different ways we can live, even through people we've never met, which expands upon the motif of being strung together. Hearing this inspires Amie to apologize to Nina right in time to attend their new impromptu wedding dinner, further supporting the motif.
