The Good Samaritan

In The Good Samaritan, manipulation is portrayed not merely as a tool for personal gain but as a destructive compulsion rooted in an inability to maintain healthy relationships. This compulsion is most evident in Laura, whose work at the End of the Line helpline becomes an outlet for exerting the power she feels she has lost in her own life.

A motif of addiction permeates the novel, but the most central example of addictive behavior does not involve literal substance use; rather, it is Laura’s deep-seated need to control others. Notes on her time in foster care confirm that this is a long-standing tendency: “She has a desire to get her own way and is overtly charming but can be covertly hostile towards others” (298). As an adult, she has perfected this deception, presenting herself as an “office mum” to her colleagues while secretly preying on vulnerable callers. She methodically guides individuals like Chantelle toward suicide, reinforcing their despair by asking leading questions such as, “Do you think they might grow up resenting you?” (33). By orchestrating their deaths, Laura seizes a form of ultimate control over life and death, the psychological effects of which are potent: “To have spent time working with a candidate […] and then to be rewarded with their final breath is intoxicating” (99). The word choice—“intoxicating”—evokes drugs or alcohol, reinforcing the compulsive nature of Laura’s behavior.

The novel implies that Laura’s need for control is a form of compensation rooted in her own family’s tragic demise. Her mother’s illness and her father’s subsequent depression created a dysfunctional family environment where Laura was largely neglected. In this context, witnessing her mother’s death and then participating, however unknowingly, in the deaths of her father and sisters became a form of intimacy; she says, for example, that hearing her mother’s last breath “brought [them] closer than two people could ever be” (101). Exercising control, particularly by arranging others’ deaths, thus became a way to manage her fear of abandonment. The contrast afforded by others’ suicides also reassures her that her own life is worthwhile and that she is “strong”—reassurance she needs, as she alludes to having struggled with suicidal ideation herself.

However, this way of engaging with others actually precludes true emotional connection while immiserating both her and everyone she’s close to. Laura claims to love her husband and children, but her relationships with them are entirely contingent on control. This culminates in her blackmail of Tony. By holding the video of Johnny’s death over him, she traps him in their marriage, achieving the absolute control she craves while failing to understand that he cannot possibly love her under the circumstances. Her tone is puzzled, for example, as she notes that “even sleeping next to each other didn’t bring [them] closer” (372). The irony of Laura’s need for control is thus that it controls her, trapping her in a pattern of destructive and self-destructive behavior.