55 pages • 1 hour read
Graham GardnerInventing Elliot
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Getting Noticed in the Right Way
“Getting noticed in the right way” (33)—and its inverse, not being “noticed in the wrong way” (15)—is a motif that runs throughout the book. Being noticed for the right or wrong reason becomes Elliot’s preoccupation, and he must constantly reassure himself that he is being noticed in a positive way, like excelling on the swim team, without sticking out too much. Elliot develops this coping strategy after experiencing bullying at his old school, believing that he was bullied for who he was and turning the blame inwards, rather than outwards towards those actually doing the bullying. Elliot has a theory—“Getting noticed in the right way involved making yourself stand out just enough to fit in” (33)—and he reinvents himself based on this theory, cultivating a personality with the aim of being noticed, just enough. Elliot feels he is successful because the Guardians accept him as one of their own, but this situation puts Elliot in emotional turmoil. In the end, Elliot realizes that being noticed for who you really are is what matters, and not whether you are noticed in a “right” or a “wrong” way.
Mask
The “mask” is used consistently throughout the book to symbolize the fronts that people put up to hide their true personality. In Elliot’s case the masks almost become a physical shield in his mind that he believes are essential for his survival: “if the mask he wore when he was with the Guardians should slip for even a fraction of a moment […] there would be no mercy. He would be annihilated” (123). This symbol is used when Elliot is mentally breaking down and unable to hold it together in front of Ben. His two selves fight for control: “A screaming mask. A mask of screams. He imagines a boot stamping down, cutting off the screaming, destroying obliterating. I am strong. I am strong. I can make myself fear nothing” (136). Gardner uses italics to differentiate between the two Elliots; the old, real Elliot and the new Elliot, a mask of cruelty and indifference. Elliot is only freed from his self-imposed mental torture when he removes all of his masks and accepts himself for who he is. Mrs. Davidson also uses masks as a symbol for hiding insecurities behind a fake persona and sums up Elliot’s situation perfectly: “Those with the most effective masks can find it hard to take them off” (126).
Death
Even though no characters die in the book, death and dying are used often throughout the book to symbolize losing the aspects of life that make it worth living. Elliot’s father has lost everything following his attack, including (according to Elliot) his will to get better. Seeing his father stuck in a hellish limbo caused by his traumatic brain injury, Elliot wishes he would “just die” (12). Horrified by his thought, he realizes that his old father is already dead, and the “person he wanted to die was the man who sat there and said and did nothing” (13), not his father.
The way Gardener describes the students who are being bullied often alludes to death; for example, he describes Baker as looking “like a ghost, or a dead body” (30). When new Elliot starts to accept Richard’s teachings, that bullies “only reveal what is already there” (106), he experiences a “brilliant, cold, and merciless enlightenment […] and something inside him that really had died a long time ago, on the cold tiles of a locker room floor, died again” (106). Gardner is referring to the time Elliot was viciously beaten at his old school, when he thought, “You can’t hurt me. I’m dead already. Dead” (166). This underlines that the lasting effects of bullying are as bad as death itself since the joy of living is stolen. Elliot maintains this cold, lifeless demeanor throughout most of the book in an attempt to stay safe, but ultimately realizes that living this way is no life at all. The book ends with Elliot choosing to live rather than symbolically “staying dead” (181).
