What does the jailhouse represent?

The jailhouse symbolizes an intersection of lives in "Strangler Bob." Throughout the story, the author weaves together the strands of several characters’ lives, providing the reader with their backstories as well as thoughts and actions within the jailhouse itself. In doing so, the jailhouse becomes something of a meeting place in which all of these distinct, well-developed characters interact with one another before going on their separate ways, some even meeting up again later in life as well. In doing so, the jailhouse becomes so much more than just a holding cell, as the narratives of each the characters’ lives stretch into the past and the future beyond the confines of their cell walls, with the prison representing a mere moment in time during which they all intersect.