Olivia Collins Character Analysis

The novel presents Olivia at various stages in her life. In the 1950s, she is a young painter in Manhattan, struggling to make ends meet and to make a name for herself. She first meets Jonathan Alkaitis through his older brother Lucas, who is also a painter, when she and Lucas agree to pose for each other. Olivia sees that Lucas has bruises on his arm from intravenous drug use and incorporates this detail into her painting without Lucas’s consent. Olivia’s decision to put his addiction on display for the world infuriates Lucas, who dies of an overdose shortly after he sees the painting. It’s at this showing that Olivia first meets a young Jonathan Alkaitis. Forty years later, there’s a retrospective exhibition of 1950s art, and the portrait of Lucas sells for a large sum of money. That Olivia ultimately benefits financially from her betrayal of Lucas illustrates how people’s greed and self-interest can make them complicit, if only indirectly, in the downfall of others. Olivia’s sister Monica, who’s a retired lawyer by the time the painting sells, suggests that Olivia invest her new wealth and recommends Jonathan Alkaitis, though she’s unaware of Olivia’s oddly coincidental connection to Jonathan. Olivia and Jonathan keep in touch after their initial meeting to discuss Olivia’s investment, and they become friends. Jonathan likes being around Olivia because it makes him feel closer to Lucas, whom he never really got the chance to know. The fact of Jonathan and Olivia’s friendship makes it all the more abhorrent that Jonathan keeps from Olivia the fact that he’s running a Ponzi scheme and defrauding her of her life’s savings. After losing her life savings to Alkaitis’s fraud, Olivia can no longer afford rent on her New York City apartment and is forced to move in with her sister. Alkaitis sees Olivia’s ghost on several occasions while he is in prison, which is indicative of the guilt he feels about bankrupting and betraying her. Olivia’s ghost also visits Vincent the night Vincent drowns while working on the Neptune Cumberland: it’s the shock of seeing Olivia that indirectly causes Vincent to become distracted, drop her camera, and fall overboard.