Water Symbol Analysis

Water symbolizes isolation and, by extension, the state of self-awareness and understanding that can result when one accepts the lessons isolation has to teach them. Throughout the novel, water is itself an isolating force. Water isolates the Hotel Caiette and its inhabitants from the mainland. When Walter, the former night manager, takes on the role of caretaker after the hotel is abandoned after Jonathan Alkaitis’s arrest, the hotel’s location on an isolated island provides him with a highly solitary, lonesome life.  When, in the aftermath of the collapse of Jonathan Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme, Vincent goes to sea to work as a cook aboard the Neptune Cumberland, the ocean separates her from the troubles and baggage of her previous life. Water also separates Vincent from her deceased mother, who drowned when Vincent was 13 years old.

Water’s symbolic role in the novel, then, is to add a layer of thematic significance to the literally isolating properties of water. When characters are confronted with water, they’re often at a point in their lives where they can—if they wish—take advantage of their isolation to come to terms with themselves, the trajectory of their lives, and who they’ve become or failed to become. Some characters, such as Walter and Vincent, accept the opportunity for introspection that water and isolation presents them, abandoning the safe, connected havens that social networks and other cultural systems afforded them. Isolated from the distractions inherent within a connected, community-oriented life, they look within themselves in an effort to find inner peace and confront their demons. When Vincent goes to sea, she abandons the cushy, stable existence she had living with Jonathan in “the kingdom of money.” Being at sea helps her reconnect with her deceased mother, who also went to sea when she was a young woman. Though Vincent eventually dies at sea, in her final moments of consciousness, she has the realization that her mother’s death so many years before was an accident—an uncertainty that had plagued her all throughout her life—and is able to die peacefully, laying this longtime demon to rest.

Closely aligned with isolation is the idea of independence. When water separates islands from one another, it creates independent, self-sustaining bodies of land. The struggle to become independent—and the allure of relying on others to satisfy one’s emotional and financial needs—is a problem that plagues many characters throughout the novel. Vincent, in particular, struggles to justify her new existence as Jonathan’s trophy “wife,” particularly in light of the fact that she’s prided herself on supporting herself since she was 17. Still, she goes along with her and Jonathan’s “arrangement” for nearly three years, turning a blind eye to any potential sketchiness she senses in his firm, because, as she cynically realizes, “dependency was easier.” Thus, when Vincent chooses to go to sea after Jonathan is arrested and her stay in “the kingdom of money” comes to an end,  it's Vincent’s way of definitely ending the period of her life when she was dependent on others and reestablishing herself as an independent, self-sufficient entity.