For the Sake of Elena
61 pages • 2-hour read
Elizabeth GeorgeFor the Sake of Elena
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Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, mental health concerns, ableism, and illness or death.
The Violence of Imposed Identities
In For the Sake of Elena, the identities others attempt to prescribe for and impose on Elena act as a form of psychological harm. Her father, her peers in the Deaf community, and her lovers each construct versions of her that fit their own needs. Each group tries to make her conform to their ideas about who she should be, which leaves her without space to claim her own identity. The pressure to meet these competing portraits isolates her and fuels the choices that precede her death. The novel shows how these expectations function as a form of erasure, stripping away her sense of self long before her murder.
Anthony’s personal demons and implicit shame about Elena’s deafness creates ongoing tension in their relationship as he pushes her to assimilate into the hearing world, forbidding her from learning sign language or integrating into the deaf community. While his guilt over abandoning her as a child motivates him to try and rebuild their relationship, he maintains a complex discomfort with and prejudice against her deafness. Elena sees his efforts to forge a relationship with her as a performance. His critiques of her essays become a way of saying, “Look how concerned I am, see how much I love you, note how I treasure having you back in my life…” (6). His attention feels suffocating because she believes it reflects his own ableism and need for her to be a “normal” daughter rather than accepting her for who she is. His push for her to present herself as a hearing person in a hearing world denies the reality of her experience and shapes a life that caters to his own insecurities instead of supporting his daughter.
In contrast, Gareth, Elena’s friend and the president of the Deaf Student Union, attempts to pull her in the other direction, encouraging her to assimilate fully into deaf culture and reject the hearing world, angry that Elena’s parents made her “play at hearing” (219). He insists that DeaStu is her true community and her rightful home, assuming he knows what’s best for her without considering her perspective. Elena feels smothered by his expectations, thinking, “Here comes trouble” (91) each time he came to see her. She feels pulled between a father who rejects her deafness and a peer who views her through the lens of his own agenda, leaving her with no room to define herself.
Victor, the University don with whom Elena has an affair, defines her in opposition to his wife. When he speaks of his wife, he describes all the ways she no longer satisfies his sexual needs: “I felt an aversion when I looked at what was left of her stomach. I was mildly disgusted over the size of her hips, and I hated the drooping sacks that her breasts had become and the loose flesh hanging beneath her arms” (343). In contrast, he measures Elena’s worth by her ability to arouse him and cater to his whims: “she was brilliant at reading me. She always knew what I wanted and when I wanted it and just exactly how” (345). Victor justifies his behavior by noting that Elena was using him to “hurt her father” (345), without acknowledging or taking accountability for the power imbalance inherent in their relationship. While he starts his affair with Elena as an escape from his marriage, he turns it into a story about rescuing her. He claims his love will “heal her” and treats this belief as justification for his actions. This constructed narrative lets him avoid facing the damage he’s caused.
Elena uses her sexuality as a tool for regaining control by weaponizing the roles others attach to her to punish them. Her stepmother, Justine, sees her overt sexuality as a warped way of telling her father, “I’m being normal, Daddy. See how normal I am? I’m partying and drinking and having regular sex. Isn’t this what you wanted?…” (200). When Elena becomes pregnant, those around her see it as her final act of rebellion against the tidy identities her father and Gareth project onto her. This last attempt to reclaim her story leaves her exposed to danger and shows how repeated attempts to prescribed identities and values onto her push her toward destructive choices in her attempts to assert her own will and enact her revenge.
The Corruption of Institutional Power and the Concealment of Harm
Throughout the novel, George highlights the ways that Cambridge University, shaped by hierarchy and prestige, prioritizes its reputation over the well-being of its students. The university’s response to Elena’s murder and its handling of internal misconduct reveal a system that conceals harm. The drive to maintain a polished public image blocks accountability and creates conditions where abuse remains hidden behind the institution’s authority.
The university’s early reaction to Elena’s death makes it clear that their top priority is protecting the university’s reputation. The Master of St. Stephen’s College and the Vice Chancellor decline to use the local Cambridge police and reach out instead to New Scotland Yard, highlighting their fear of repeating the “nasty situation” when local police mishandled a previous investigation into a student’s death by suicide, resulting in bad press for the university. Their request that Lynley handle Elena’s murder investigation with “delicacy and tact” (22) signals a primary focus on avoiding scandal rather than securing justice for Elena. Local Police Superintendent Sheehan recognizes this decision as a public relations strategy and connects it to the university’s anxiety about a “town-and-gown situation” (22) that could damage its image. These early insights establish a pattern of privileging reputation at the expense of truth.
The university’s protective impulses escalate when senior members face scrutiny. Terence Cuff, the Master of St. Stephen’s, buries Elena’s sexual harassment complaint against Professor Thorsson, a senior fellow. When Inspector Lynley questions him, Cuff calls it “unnecessary” (228) to share the complaint. He frames his silence as a way to protect Thorsson’s career and spare Anthony further distress, but his reasoning exposes a pattern of shielding insiders whose reputations are tied to the institution. He declines to pursue Elena’s complaint because he worries an open inquiry will stain Thorsson’s record and drag the college into scandal. By handling the issue privately, Cuff reinforces a culture where abuse goes unchallenged, and victims are discouraged from speak out, all for the sake of reifying the power and prestige of the university.
George also reveals the ways the pressure to uphold this image of excellence extends into the characters’ personal spheres as well. Anthony’s fixation on presenting Elena as a thriving student is directly tied to his desire to secure the prestigious position of the Penford Chair of History. His graduate student, Adam, explains that candidates “walk a tight-rope” (163) and that the selection committee searches for “red skeletons in somebody’s closet” (164). This level of scrutiny means any hint of family turmoil could harm Anthony’s prospects. George suggests that his preoccupation with Elena’s behavior grows out of concern for appearances rather than concern for her. The institution’s values seep into the private lives of those who benefit from its reputation, pushing its members to hide their struggles instead of addressing them.
The Influence of Guilt on Love and Care
In For the Sake of Elena, guilt acts as a destructive force on the characters’ relationships, both with others and with themselves. George’s plot centers the ways a character’s guilt-driven actions, presented as care, prioritize their own needs rather than the other person’s well-being. Anthony’s fraught relationship with Elena and Sergeant Havers’s conflict over her mother’s long-term care create parallel examples of this pattern.
Anthony’s intense attention to Elena grows out of his guilt over leaving her when she was young. He admits, “I left her mother when Elena was five […] I left her, betrayed her” (65). His choices in the novel’s present attempt to erase this betrayal, preserve his reputation, and assuage his own guilt rather than establish an authentic, loving relationship with her. Elena reads his constant monitoring of her running and his critiques of her essays as performative attention that makes her “skin crawl” (6). His affection becomes a bid for forgiveness that requires her to accept his control. This dynamic limits her independence and pushes her toward harmful rebellion, privileging his emotional needs instead of hers.
Sergeant Havers’s guilt over seeing her mother unhappy holds her back from getting her the help she truly needs. She feels like a “criminal” when she considers putting her mother in an assisted living facility, questioning whether placing her mother in a care home is “the right one, or is it just a convenient escape?” (31). This conflict shapes her acts of care, which become weighed down by guilt and worry, keeping both herself and her mother in limbo. Sergeant Havers inability to commit to the solution of assisted living ultimately puts her mother in an abusive situation with her neglectful caregiver, Mrs. Gustafson. Across her arc, she learns to move through her own guilt and pain over her mother’s declining condition and make the choice that’s best for her mother’s ongoing care, even when it’s difficult. Her efforts to handle her mother’s needs leave her anxious and ashamed, showing how care rooted in guilt punishes both people in the relationship.c
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