The Saint Brendan Figurine Symbol in Our Wives Under the Sea
What Is the Saint Brendan Figurine?
The Saint Brendan figurine is a small plastic object that belongs to Jelka, one of the three crew members trapped in a disabled submarine in Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea. It depicts Saint Brendan of Clonfert, the sixth-century Irish abbot and seafarer who, according to legend, sailed the Atlantic in search of the Garden of Eden. As Leah notes in chapter 17, Saint Brendan is the patron saint of mariners, sailors, divers, adventurers, travelers, and—for reasons Leah finds amusing—whales. The figurine itself is described as having a sculpted beard and cradling a miniature galleon in one arm, details Leah notices when she holds it up to the kitchen lights in chapter 33.
Jelka introduces the figurine early in the crew's ordeal. In chapter 17, Leah recalls that Jelka "had produced a small plastic figurine of Saint Brendan of Clonfert and set it down beside one of the torches." The object is not a precious relic or a carefully carved icon; it is a cheap, mass-produced token, the kind of thing one might find in a gift shop or a religious goods store. Its ordinariness matters. In the claustrophobic, failing craft, surrounded by malfunctioning machinery and the pressure of miles of water, this tiny plastic saint becomes an anchor for Jelka's faith and, later, a strange barometer of the crew's slide into unreality.
Where the Figurine Appears and How Its Meaning Shifts
The figurine recurs at key moments in the narrative, and each appearance carries a slightly different weight. In chapter 17, Jelka places it beside a torch and sits before it "the way one might huddle around a fireplace." This is the figurine as devotional object, a focus for prayer and a comfort in the dark. Leah uses the moment to explain Jelka's theology: you pray with saints, not to them, because a saint makes intercession to God on your behalf. Jelka's comparison—"Spiritually speaking, it's like diving with a buddy"—links her faith directly to the world of the deep sea, where a buddy system is a matter of survival.
By chapter 25, the figurine has taken on a more unsettling quality. Jelka sits cross-legged on the main deck, and Leah sets a torch by her feet. Beside her, the Saint Brendan figurine "stood with his face to the wall." The saint is turned away, as if refusing to witness what is happening, or as if Jelka herself has turned her back on the comfort it once offered. This is the first sign that the object is no longer a simple talisman. It has become a marker of Jelka's deteriorating mental state, a physical manifestation of her withdrawal from the crew and from reality.
In chapter 31, after Jelka has a violent episode in which she grips Matteo's head and claims something is speaking to her, she releases him and says, "It'll be all right now." Leah bends down to pick up the figurine, which has fallen to the floor. The act of retrieving it is almost automatic, a gesture of tidying up, but it also signals that the object has passed, in some small way, into Leah's keeping. Later that same chapter, Leah wakes to find the figurine in her bunk. She does not remember putting it there. This is the first instance of the figurine appearing in a place where it should not be, and it marks the beginning of the object's uncanny mobility.
By chapter 33, the figurine has become a recurring presence in Leah's bunk. She finds it again and holds it up to the light, examining its details. This time, the figurine triggers a memory of Jelka's retelling of Saint Brendan's voyage, specifically the episode in which the saint encounters Judas chained to a pillar of rock in the middle of the sea. Leah recalls that Judas is freed from hell on Sundays and Holy Days and cast adrift on the ocean, where he can at least feel the wind on his face. The story resonates with the crew's own situation: they are adrift, trapped, and at the mercy of forces they do not understand. The figurine, once a symbol of faith and hope, now seems to embody the ambiguity of mercy and punishment, of being saved and being lost at the same time.
Faith, Doubt, and the Limits of Knowledge
The figurine is inseparable from the novel's exploration of faith and the limits of human understanding. Jelka's Catholicism is a "white-hot core" to an otherwise brisk and rational personality, as Leah observes. She had wanted to become a priest but was barred by church policy, and she turned to marine ecology instead. Her faith is not naive; it is a furious, complicated thing. She tells Leah that she feels better in places where there aren't any churches. The figurine, then, is not a symbol of institutional religion but of a personal, stubborn belief that persists even in the most godforsaken places.
The novel's epigraphs set up a world in which the sea is treacherous and unknowable. The Melville epigraph warns that the sea's beauty hides danger and that the human soul contains a peaceful island surrounded by "the horrors of the half-known life." The figurine is a tiny piece of that island, carried into the deep. But as the crew's situation worsens, the figurine stops providing comfort. It becomes a reminder of what they cannot know or control. In chapter 33, Leah reflects on her own accumulation of ocean facts—tides, the seven seas, the chemistry of seawater—and admits that "you can never learn enough to protect yourself, not really." The figurine, with its fixed, silent presence, underscores this theme. It is a static object in a world where everything else is dissolving, but it offers no answers.
The story of Saint Brendan and Judas, which Leah recalls while holding the figurine, deepens this sense of ambiguity. Judas is punished but also granted mercy—freed from hell on Sundays and Holy Days, allowed to feel the wind on his face. The ocean is both a prison and a release. This duality mirrors the crew's own experience. They are trapped in the craft, but the ocean outside is also a vast, indifferent expanse. The figurine, which once represented the possibility of divine intercession, now seems to represent the impossibility of knowing whether they are being punished or saved, or whether anyone is listening at all.
The Figurine and the Crew's Deteriorating Reality
As the crew's grip on reality loosens, the figurine becomes a marker of that deterioration. In chapter 31, Matteo reports dreaming that the comms panel came online, and Jelka emerges from the wash stall claiming something is speaking to her. The figurine's appearance in Leah's bunk without explanation suggests that the boundaries between the real and the imagined are breaking down. It is not just that the crew is hallucinating; objects themselves seem to move of their own accord. The figurine, once a deliberate placement by Jelka, now appears as if by its own will.
This uncanny mobility connects to the novel's broader themes of oceanic transformation and the erosion of memory and identity. The ocean, as Leah notes in chapter 3, erases traces where the moon preserves them. The crew members are being slowly unmade by the pressure and the darkness. The figurine, with its fixed, plastic form, is a counterpoint to their dissolution. It remains intact while they fall apart. But its very persistence becomes eerie, a sign that the normal rules of cause and effect no longer apply.
The figurine also ties into the theme of failed communication and support systems. Jelka's faith is a form of communication with the divine, but it fails to provide the intercession she hopes for. The crew's attempts to contact the surface fail as well. The figurine, which Jelka once used as a buddy in prayer, becomes a silent witness to their isolation. In chapter 31, after Jelka's outburst, Matteo offers to pray, and Jelka releases him. The prayer is a gesture of support, but it does not change their situation. The figurine, sitting on the floor or in Leah's bunk, is a reminder that even the most sincere appeals may go unanswered.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does the Saint Brendan figurine function as a symbol of faith in the novel?
The figurine represents Jelka's personal, idiosyncratic Catholicism. It is a physical focus for her prayers, and her explanation that one prays with saints rather than to them emphasizes the idea of intercession and partnership. The figurine is a talisman that connects Jelka to a tradition of seafaring saints and to the hope that someone—or something—might intervene on her behalf. However, as the crew's ordeal continues, the figurine's power to comfort diminishes, and it becomes a symbol of faith's limits rather than its strength.
2. What does the figurine's changing position and location reveal about the crew's mental state?
Initially, the figurine is placed deliberately beside a torch, a sign of intentional devotion. Later, it stands with its face to the wall, suggesting withdrawal or rejection. When it falls to the floor and Leah picks it up, it has become a passive object, no longer actively used for prayer. Its unexplained appearance in Leah's bunk marks a shift into the uncanny, indicating that the crew's perception of reality is breaking down. The figurine's movements mirror the crew's loss of control and their growing inability to distinguish between what is real and what is imagined.
3. How does the story of Saint Brendan and Judas, which Leah recalls in chapter 33, parallel the crew's situation?
The story describes Judas chained to a rock in the middle of the ocean, punished but also granted periodic mercy. He is adrift, at the mercy of the elements, yet allowed to feel the wind on his face. This parallels the crew's own predicament: they are trapped in a sunken craft, unable to surface, but they are still alive and conscious. The story also raises questions about punishment and mercy, about whether their descent is a form of divine retribution or simply an accident. The figurine, which triggers this memory, becomes a lens through which Leah tries to make sense of their suffering, but the story offers no clear answer.
4. In what ways does the figurine connect to the novel's themes of ambiguous grief and the limits of knowledge?
The figurine is a relic of Jelka, who dies during the dive. After her death, it appears in Leah's bunk, serving as a tangible link to the lost crew member. For Leah, it becomes an object of mourning, but its unexplained movements make it an unreliable source of comfort. The figurine also embodies the novel's insistence that knowledge is insufficient. Leah can catalogue ocean facts, but she cannot understand what happened to them or why the figurine keeps appearing. The object resists interpretation, just as the ocean and the events of the dive resist explanation. It stands as a reminder that some things—like grief, like the deep sea—remain unknowable.