The Spinning Knife Symbol Analysis

Random forces of good and bad luck seem to affect the lives of the Lamb family more than anything else, and the spinning knife symbolizes this randomness most clearly. While Lester and his children enjoy spinning a knife on their kitchen table and asking it questions as an amusing game, it also serves as a constant reminder of their apparent lack of control over their own lives and destinies. It’s fitting that Fish is the character who plays with the knife most often, as his mental state was changed drastically and permanently by an accident that seemed to happen for no reason at all. Both Lester and Oriel can’t help but wonder if the entire world is at the mercy of luck and fate as they watch the knife spin and stop where it may. This is a stark contrast to their previous, more religious worldview, which reassured them that everything happens for a reason. But ever since Fish nearly drowned and lost his former personality forever, the Lambs have a much harder time believing that their lives are governed by anything other than the random whims of fate. Throughout the novel, the Lamb family members spin the knife again and again, trying to work through the family’s ongoing uncertainties about what chance has in store for them. Even as the Lambs jokingly tell themselves that “the knife never lies,” they’re tempted to seriously believe that acts of God are either completely random or too mysterious to be fully understood.