Jelka in Our Wives Under the Sea: A Character Analysis of Faith, Voices, and Sacrifice
Overview
Jelka is one of three crew members aboard the submersible that loses contact with the surface in Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea. A marine ecologist who transferred to the Centre alongside Leah, Jelka is defined by a devout Catholicism that Leah describes as a white-hot core beneath a brisk and rational exterior (Chapter 17). She is the first crew member to notice the smell of meat before the sub loses contact, and she is the first to hear a voice coming from outside the craft. Her eventual decision to exit through the escape trunk—a fatal act—becomes one of the novel's most haunting set pieces and a turning point for the two surviving crew members.
Plot Role
Jelka functions as the novel's early warning system. In Chapter 3, she tells Leah she smells meat—a smell Leah has also noticed but Matteo dismisses. This sensory perception marks her as the crew member most attuned to the wrongness of their situation. During the descent, she prays (Chapter 7), then stops praying and begins humming (Chapter 9), a shift Leah finds worse than the praying. On the sea floor, she is the first to hear sounds the others cannot, pressing against windows and hatches (Chapter 29). Her deterioration—from devout prayer to obsessive listening—charts the psychological unraveling that the deep-sea environment induces.
Jelka's death is the novel's central catastrophe. In Chapter 31, she goes through the escape trunk, which floods and opens to the ocean. Matteo beats on the hatch, but it is too late. Her death is confirmed in Chapter 30, when her sister Juna tells Miri that Jelka is dead.
Motivations and Traits
Jelka's faith is the organizing principle of her character. As a child, she was an altar server at her church in central Haarlem and was convinced she would train as a priest. When the Catholic Church did not permit this, she turned to marine ecology and fieldwork on the New Caledonian barrier reef. When Leah asks if the ocean appeals to her religiously, Jelka replies that she is furious she cannot do the thing she wanted to do and feels better in places without churches (Chapter 17).
This tension—between devotion and institutional rejection—shapes her response to the deep sea. Her faith gives her a vocabulary for the inexplicable: she explains that one prays with saints, not to them, so that a saint will intercede with God on one's behalf—a formulation she compares to diving with a buddy (Chapter 17). This analogy is telling: even her theology is framed in terms of the ocean.
Jelka is also characterized by a dry, aloof wit. At the going-away party, when Miri asks if she's looking forward to the trip, she replies, 'As much as anyone looks forward to a long commute' (Chapter 8). Leah describes her as smarter than herself, aloof but given to sharing lunches, and rarely open about personal matters (Chapter 17).
Chronological Arc
Before the dive: Jelka's background is established through Leah's recollections—her altar service, her thwarted priestly ambitions, her fieldwork, and her teenage fascinations with saints, including Saint Lidwina, a Dutch mystic who fasted through physical suffering (Chapter 17).
The party: Miri meets Jelka once, briefly, at the Centre's going-away reception. Jelka is dry and self-deprecating, calling the Centre's people weird (Chapter 8).
The descent: Jelka prays as the sub sinks. When the craft loses power and continues descending beyond diveable depths, she stops praying and begins humming. Leah notes her hunched over the base of her chair, pulling at the skin around her nails (Chapter 9).
On the sea floor: Jelka points out the futility of distress signals (Chapter 13). She notices her watch has stopped at 2:45 (Chapter 15). She produces a small plastic figurine of Saint Brendan and sits before it (Chapter 17). She begins hearing sounds—a creaking, pulsing noise—and approaches the lower hatch, considering opening it, but steps away (Chapter 21).
Deterioration: Jelka announces it is her birthday (Chapter 25), mentions the recurring smell of suppurating meat, and asks about a sound of talking that Leah cannot hear. She presses her ear to the escape hatch and speaks incomprehensibly, explaining that ghosts do not speak and that a speaking presence would be something worse (Chapter 27). She tells Leah she hears a voice constantly (Chapter 29).
The escape: On the third day of this final phase, Jelka emerges from the wash stall, grips Matteo's head, and says something is speaking to her. Matteo apologizes and offers to pray. That evening, Jelka goes through the escape trunk. The trunk floods and the outer doors open (Chapter 31).
Aftermath: Matteo holds Jelka's rosary beads as the craft surfaces (Chapter 41). Leah later hears the voice Jelka had described (Chapter 33).
Relationships
Leah: Jelka and Leah worked together at their old facility and transferred to the Centre together. Leah respects Jelka's intelligence but finds her opaque. After Jelka's death, Leah expresses regret that she did not touch Jelka when Jelka reached for her (Chapter 32). Leah also reflects that she dodged Jelka's touch when Jelka reached for her, and that this is the thing that makes her feel worst (Chapter 31).
Matteo: The relationship is strained. Matteo calls Jelka crazy, slaps her when she is in the wash stall, and pulls her away from hatches. But he also apologizes and offers to pray with her. After her death, he holds her rosary beads (Chapter 41).
Miri: They meet once, briefly, at the party. Miri cannot remember what Jelka looked like when Juna describes her (Chapter 30).
Juna: Jelka's sister, who seeks answers after Jelka's death and meets Miri to share what she has learned (Chapter 30).
Key Decisions and Consequences
Going through the escape trunk: This is Jelka's final and most consequential decision. The text presents it as a response to the voice she hears—she has been tired of hearing it and the shower muffles it, but the voice persists. Her exit through the trunk is fatal; the pressure outside would crush anyone attempting to escape at that depth. The consequence is her death, and the aftermath shapes the rest of the novel: Matteo and Leah's silent grief, Miri's meeting with Juna, and Leah's eventual hearing of the voice herself.
Choosing to listen: Jelka's decision to listen to the voice rather than resist it distinguishes her from Matteo and Leah. She tells Leah that Leah would hear it too if she tried (Chapter 31). This is presented as a choice—she is willing to listen where others are not.
Theme and Symbol Connections
Faith and the unknown: Jelka's Catholicism provides a framework for the novel's exploration of the limits of knowledge. Her faith allows her to accept the existence of things she cannot see or explain—a stance that proves both her strength and her undoing. The novel suggests that the deep sea, like faith, demands a surrender of rational control.
Oceanic transformation: Jelka's physical and psychological changes mirror the novel's broader theme of oceanic transformation. She drinks water, presses against hatches, and ultimately returns to the sea. Her death can be read as a kind of oceanic absorption.
Failure of communication: Jelka's voice—the one she hears—is something the others cannot perceive. This failure of communication is central to the novel's theme of failed support systems. Matteo's violence toward her (slapping her, calling her crazy) is a failure of care.
Ambiguous grief: Jelka's death is never witnessed directly; it is inferred from the flooding of the escape trunk. This ambiguity echoes the novel's broader treatment of ambiguous grief.
Erosion of memory and identity: Jelka's gradual loss of coherent selfhood—her obsessive listening, her withdrawal into the wash stall—connects to the novel's theme of erosion of memory and identity.
Questions and Answers
1. Why does Jelka hear voices the others don't?
The novel does not provide a definitive explanation. The text suggests that Jelka's faith makes her more receptive to the supernatural or inexplicable. She is the first to notice the smell of meat, the first to hear the voice, and the first to act on what she perceives. Leah eventually hears the voice too (Chapter 33), suggesting it is real rather than a hallucination, but Jelka's sensitivity to it is unique.
2. What does Jelka's Catholicism represent in the novel?
Jelka's faith represents a way of knowing that is distinct from the rational, scientific approach of the other characters. Her belief in saints, intercession, and the reality of unseen forces gives her a framework for understanding the deep-sea experience that Matteo and Leah lack. It also represents institutional rejection—she wanted to be a priest and was denied—that parallels the novel's themes of failed support systems.
3. Why does Jelka go through the escape trunk?
The text presents this as a response to the voice she hears. She has been tired of hearing it and has sought relief in the shower, which muffles the sound. The voice tells her something, and she acts on it. The novel leaves open whether this is a rational choice, a religious calling, or a psychotic break. What is clear is that she chooses to exit, and the escape trunk floods and opens.
4. What is the significance of Saint Brendan?
Saint Brendan is the patron saint of mariners, sailors, divers, adventurers, travelers, and whales. Jelka tells Leah the story of Saint Brendan's Atlantic voyage in search of the Garden of Eden, encountering devils, gryphons, and sea monsters. The saint's journey—a quest into the unknown, marked by encounters with the supernatural—mirrors Jelka's own journey. The figurine appears in strange places after her death, suggesting her continued presence.
5. How does Jelka's death affect Leah and Matteo?
After Jelka's death, Leah and Matteo's cohabitation recedes to something empty and quiet (Chapter 35). They move around each other, giving each other a wide berth. Matteo sits in his circle of torches, staring at the windows. Leah experiences rage and a desperate desire to be hugged. Matteo holds Jelka's rosary beads as they surface. Leah later hears the voice Jelka described, suggesting that Jelka's experience was not unique but was the first manifestation of something that would eventually touch them all.
For more on the novel's ending and how Jelka's death fits into the broader narrative, see the ending explained page, or browse common questions and answers.