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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Glass Hotel, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Complicity and Interconnectedness
Guilt and Responsibility
Fraud and Constructed Identity
Greed, Delusion, and Self Interest
Alienation and Self-Knowledge
Regret and Disillusionment
Summary
Analysis
1: It’s 2005 at the Hotel Caiette. Paul is sweeping the lobby when a guest speaks up to say, jokingly, that he missed a spot. The guest is Ella Kaspersky, who draws him near to speak with him privately. She asks him how much longer he plans to work at the hotel, and Paul admits that he likely won’t be there much longer. Inwardly, Paul laments his hatred of Caiette, of how painful it is to be reminded of his recently deceased father, and of his dislike for his coworkers. Ella asks him what he plans to do instead, and Paul says he wants to be a composer. Ella tells Paul she’s going to tell him a story “which will end with a business proposition.” Paul agrees to hear out Ella.
Ella’s exploitation of Paul seems to mirror Alkaitis’s exploitation of his investors: both characters prey on their targets’ needs and vulnerabilities and the blind spots they develop because of them. In a way, Ella is as much a con[wo]man as Alkaitis is. This formulation complicates what might be the reader’s instinct to villainize Alkaitis and valorize Ella, since it suggests that the supposedly “good” character is just as capable of manipulation and exploitation as the novel’s villain.
Themes
Ella explains that she wants to convey a specific message to Jonathan Alkaitis when he arrives at the hotel, and she wants it “to be delivered in an unforgettable way.” Paul offers his memory of Vincent graffitiing the school wall with an acid marker many years ago, and Ella thinks this will be the perfect method of delivery for her message.
This scene confirms what the novel has alluded to in a number of earlier passages: that Paul was bribed to write the message on the Hotel Caiette’s glass wall, and that it was Ella who paid him to do so.
Themes
Paul writes Ella’s message during his dinner break on the arranged night, and it gives him a feeling “like stars exploding in his chest.” After shedding his dark hoodie and gloves, he returns to the lobby and watches the horrified responses of people as they take in his message. He tries to act cool, asking Walter what happened to the window, but Paul can hear that his voice sounds off. He approaches Vincent, who is so upset by the message that she’s begun to cry and excuses herself. Paul gazes at the glass wall and notes that “the lobby [is] reflected with almost mirrorlike fidelity,” but now this image is “pierced by a white light out on the water” as a boat on the water carries Jonathan Alkaitis toward the hotel.
The feeling “like stars exploding in his chest” that Paul gets when he writes Ella’s message seems to be one of exhilaration and reflects Paul’s characteristic disregard for others’ feelings, and his failure to see how his actions have consequences that don’t start and end with himself. Paul’s observation that the glass wall “reflect[s]” the lobby “with almost mirrorlike fidelity” exacerbates Paul’s disconnect with the world. If the glass wall really does reflect the lobby and everyone in it as honestly and as accurately as a mirror, then he should have no trouble seeing the pain his threatening message has caused others, and the self-delusion within himself that was necessary for him to agree to write such a message in the first place. But Paul’s speculations are cut short by the reflection of Alkaitis’s boat in the water, and his attempt at self-reflection grinds to a screeching halt. The glass wall might reflect a mirror-like honesty, but that honesty is also vulnerable to the distorting forces of greed and delusion, represented by the “pierc[ing…] white light” of Alkaitis’s boat.
Themes
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It’s now three years later, in December 2008, and Walter is reading of Alkaitis’s arrest. He immediately grows faint, and his coworkers rush to his side. Larry sees the headline Walter has just read and immediately understands. Walter explains that he’s an investor, and that he’s lost all his life’s savings. In a daze, Walter goes to see Raphael, who informs him that the hotel’s future is now in jeopardy, as well.
Like Olivia Collins and the Prevants, Walter isn’t particularly rich, so he feels the devastating effects of the collapse of Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme more intensely than the wealthier investors.
Themes
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Next week, they find out that the trustee hired to manage Alkaitis’s estate has decided to sell the hotel. Raphael reveals that the hotel hasn’t made a profit in years and that it’s unlikely a hotelier would be interested in buying. They soon learn that the hotel is for sale, with no interested buyers, and will close in a few weeks. Suddenly, an idea occurs to Walter. He calls the trustee, Alfred Selwyn, and asks if he can be the hotel’s caretaker, explaining his love for the place. Selwyn is puzzled by Walter’s request and concerned that he’ll go crazy living alone in a place so isolated, but tells Walter to send him some references and he’ll get back to him.
Walter’s world came crashing down when he discovered he lost everything to Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme. His interest in becoming the abandoned hotel’s caretaker seems to stem from a desire for the opportunity for healing that isolation can offer a person.
Themes
When Walter tells Raphael of his plans to stay on and act as the hotel’s caretaker, Raphael thinks he’s crazy. Still, he tells Walter he’s willing to give him a positive reference. Inwardly, Walter contemplates how much the hotel and Caiette mean to him, how it’s the first place he’s ever really loved. Mostly, he loves the place’s quietness, seclusion, and absence of people; after what happened with Alkaitis, he knows he won’t trust anybody ever again.
Not only has Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme destroyed Walter financially, but it also makes him hyperaware of people’s capacity to deceive and exploit others. He sees society as a system that perpetuates and even encourages greed and corruption and wants nothing to do with that system, so he removes himself from it, cutting himself off from the world geographically and psychologically.
Themes
It’s a decade later. Paul is in Edinburgh at a bar with Ella Kaspersky, whose name he can’t remember. Paul accompanies Ella outside to the terrace for a cigarette and finally remembers who she is. Ella touches Paul’s arm and apologizes for making him write the message all those years ago; she explains that she was drunk, angry, and got carried away. Paul contends that he “could’ve said no,” and while Ella agrees, she also knows she shouldn’t have asked him at all. Paul observes that she was at least right about Alkaitis.
Paul and Ella’s agreement that neither should have played any part in the vandalism of the Hotel Caiette’s glass wall positions both characters as actors in a system wherein most people are morally compromised in one way or another. It’s not fair to blame the threatening message on Ella or Paul alone, since both of them had to agree to ignore or compromise their personal values for the act of vandalism to occur.
Themes
Paul tells Ella about Vincent’s relationship with Alkaitis, and Ella is fascinated to learn about the connection and wants to know what became of Vincent. Paul admits that he doesn’t know. The last he saw of her was at his performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where he saw her sitting in the front row, though when he gazed at her again, she was gone. He imagines the confrontation they would have had. He would excuse his use of her video recordings on the grounds that she’d left them behind and clearly wasn’t going to do anything with them; she would retort that all this still didn’t give him the right to take what was hers. But they would never get the chance to have this conversation and, as a result, he’s doomed to repeat it in his head from now to eternity.
This scene confirms that Paul did see Vincent at the BAM concert a decade ago, which Vincent hadn’t known for sure. Paul’s hypothetical conversations with Vincent are reminiscent of Alkaitis’s daydreams of the counterlife: both alternate realities allude to the guilt characters feel about their moral failings, yet Alkaitis and Paul both fall short of fully admitting to the things they did wrong. Here, for instance, Paul tries to justify why it was okay for him to take Vincent’s tapes. But by not admitting to his guilt, Paul condemns himself to unresolved suffering and remorse. Just as Paul is haunted by the ghost of Charlie Wu for the role he played in his death, so too is he haunted by regret over the conversations he never had with Vincent.
Themes
Paul’s hypothetical argument with Vincent continues, with him explaining that his use of her videos led to future collaborations, to performances around the world, to a teaching position. Vincent asks him if these successes “justify” his theft, and he admits that he doesn’t know, also adding that, after the BAM performance, he never used her tapes again.
In his hypothetical conversation with Vincent, Paul crafts a self-serving narrative that justifies his mistreatment of Vincent. He’s clearly still bitter about the role she played in his parents’ divorce and thinks she owes him something in return.
Themes
Ella’s voice calls Paul back to the present moment. Paul apologizes, blaming his spaciness on the jetlag (he’s just flown from Toronto to Edinburgh). Ella looks at him with concern, giving him “a certain kind of look” that lately he’s been getting more often. Paul asks how Ella ended up at the party where they crossed paths, and she says her husband is a theater director. They order drinks, and Paul talks about the strangeness of his success as a composer while inwardly continuing his hypothetical argument with Vincent.
The “certain kind of look” Ella gives Paul implies that Paul looks high. That he’s been getting this look a lot suggests that Paul continues to struggle with addiction. Paul’s fixation on this hypothetical conversation with Vincent is a reflection of both his guilt and his unwillingness to accept responsibility for his mistreatment of her.
Themes
Ella compliments Paul on a recent video art program he created. She asks him about his musical influences, and Paul says that everything he writes sounds like Baltica, a Canadian electronica group from the 1990s, which is something he’s never told anyone. Ella misunderstands Paul’s admission, assuming that he used to be a part of Baltica. Paul plays along, explaining that the group has since gone their separate ways.
That Paul can’t stop emulating Baltica in his compositions is evidence of the unceasing guilt he feels about the role he played in Charlie Wu’s death. It’s as though the ghost of Charlie continues to visit him in the form of musical inspiration.
Themes
Back at the Hotel Caiette, Walter stands in the old staff quarters and talks to his sister on the phone. It’s been 10 years since he became the caretaker of the closed hotel, and she can’t believe he’s not lonely. The narrative reverts back to 2009, two months after Alkaitis’s arrest, when the last guest checks in and the other employees begin to leave. Raphael leaves for his new job in Edmonton, boarding a boat driven by Melissa, whose last day is today. She promises to stop by the following week to check on Walter. Walter watches the boat make its way away from the pier before returning to the hotel through the glass doors of the lobby. Though the hotel is empty, Walter doesn’t feel quite alone and observes that the hotel feels haunted by its previous inhabitants.
The presence of former guests and staff that Walter observes might be a metaphor for the lasting impact people have on others’ lives. It also illustrates how nearly impossible it is to remove oneself from society completely. Though it’s possible to achieve physical isolation, it’s difficult to build a life that’s completely untouched by society’s sphere of influence.
Themes
Back in the present, on the phone with his sister, Walter remarks how he woke up today and realized he’s been the caretaker for the past 10 years. He contemplates the last decade of his life and realizes he has loved his solitary experience here. When he hangs up the phone, he returns to the empty lobby and sees it as “a vast empty space with a panorama of wilderness beyond the glass.”
Walter uses the Hotel Caiette’s glass wall in a way that’s similar to Vincent’s use of her camera lens: as a way to edit interactions with the world in a way that filters out everything that’s too hard to see or bear. Walter is happy with his solitary life behind the safe confines of the lobby’s glass wall because it allows him to filter out the people he no longer trusts in the aftermath of Alkaitis’s betrayal.
Themes
Back in Edinburgh, Paul is talking to Ella and drinking tea, though he’s growing more and more tired. Ella suggests they part ways, telling him good luck with “the unbearable smugness of the nonaddicted,” and he hates her in this moment, though he knows he’s not doing well—he’d ODed only a month ago. He’s been able to remain functional as a heroin addict for the past decade, but now heroin is sometimes mixed with fentanyl (which is stronger), or even carfentanil (which is far more potent than fentanyl), and this scares him. Recently, he read about a rehab facility in Utah, and he knows it’s a good idea to go back to rehab.
The “unbearable smugness” with which Ella treats Paul is similar to her behavior in the aftermath of the collapse of Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme, wherein she appeared genuinely and smugly pleased to have been right about the scandal. Ella appears to take pleasure in being smarter or more morally upstanding than the cheated investors or the drug-addicted Paul, respectively. In reality, though, it’s deluded of Ella to assume that she’s impervious to corruption, exploitation, and illness. Her orchestration of the Hotel Caiette’s vandalism a decade earlier is evidence that she, too, isn’t above moral corruption.
Themes
Paul leaves the bar to walk back to his hotel in the rain. As he walks, his thoughts trail back to Vincent. On his way, he sits to rest in a doorway. He wonders again if he should try to find her and share some of his wealth with her, though he decides against this, as he needs everything he has. He reflects on the fact that he’s “never been able to completely grasp what [his] responsibilities are,” something he’s admitted in his hypothetical conversations with Vincent. Suddenly, Paul feels someone watching him from across the street. He looks up and sees a cook watching him. Just as it strikes him that the cook might be Vincent, she disappears.
Paul’s reflection about having “never been able to completely grasp what [his] responsibilities are” alludes to his mistreatment of Vincent over the years, but it also refers to his broader failure to see himself within a larger community of people, and to recognize the way his actions can affect those people in ways he might never be aware of. That he sees Vincent’s ghost is a reflection of his guilt over stealing her work, and for unfairly hating her all these years. It’s also possible that Paul is actually seeing Vincent’s ghost, since the narrative has previously revealed that Vincent (most likely) dies at sea in 2018.
Themes
For the rest of his life, Paul will talk of sitting in a doorway in Edinburgh, seeing his sister staring at him from across the street, and later learning that she had died that very night. In his story, though, he is never hallucinating; he has actually seen Vincent’s ghost. He’ll reflect on the “many ways to haunt a person, or a life,” and the uncertainty of that moment, which will always plague him.
Paul’s comment about the “many ways to haunt a person, or a life” alludes to the ways guilt, uncertainty, and regret have haunted him his entire life.
Themes
