Complicity and Interconnectedness Theme Analysis

The Glass Hotel consists of a series of initially disparate storylines. Yet as the novel progresses, narrative arcs converge, and the reader sees them as part of a larger, interconnected system. Through this interconnectedness, the novel illustrates the small and large ways in which characters are complicit in one another’s misfortunes. At the center of this complicity is the uber-rich Jonathan Alkaitis, whose Ponzi scheme robs his investors of their homes, savings, and lives. Alkaitis isn’t the only person who is complicit in the downfall of others, though: Vincent, Alkaitis’s self-proclaimed trophy wife, turns a blind eye to Alkaitis’s fraudulent firm and, through her willful ignorance, allows Faisal, the romantic partner of her close friend Mirella, to continue to invest with Alkaitis. When the scheme finally implodes, the novel insinuates that Faisal commits suicide out of shame; in this way, Vincent becomes indirectly complicit in Faisal’s demise. The novel uses these interconnected narratives to suggest that, despite the anonymity that modern society—with all its travel and opportunities to reinvent oneself—can grant a person, people’s very participation in larger social and economic systems renders them complicit in others’ misfortunes.

The novel’s focus on the ways that exploitation leads to further exploitation is evident in the relationship between Olivia Collins and the Alkaitis family. In a series of unlikely coincidences, Olivia invests—and loses—all her money with Jonathan Alkaitis, the man whose deceased brother Lucas was the cause of Olivia earning her fortune in the first place. Olivia first encounters Lucas Alkaitis, Jonathan’s older brother, when they are both struggling painters in 1950s New York City and agree to pose for each other. Olivia’s painting of Lucas showcases his bruised arm (evidence of his substance abuse problem), which isn’t something Lucas wanted displayed publicly to the world, nor is it something Olivia asked permission to do. Forty years after Olivia first displays this exploitative painting of Lucas, the painting sells for a large sum of money at a retrospective exhibit. As a result, Olivia benefits financially from her exploitation of Lucas, albeit many years into the future, and after decades of financial struggles. Olivia’s sister Monica insists that Olivia invest her newfound wealth and, by the oddest of coincidences, refers her to Jonathan Alkaitis to do so. Olivia realizes who Alkaitis is and considers it to be a “message[] from the universe” that she’s been directed to invest her money with the brother of the very man to whom she owes that wealth. When, years later, Olivia loses all her money to Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme, it’s almost as though balance has been restored: Olivia wronged Jonathan and his family by profiting off of her exploitation of Lucas and his substance abuse problem, and now Jonathan has indirectly made things even by defrauding her of that morally dubious profit. The coincidental ways in which Olivia and Jonathan are connected—a series of economic and personal acts of exploitation, a blurring of the lines between what is right and what is wrong—shows how people can hurt and exploit each other across many degrees and years of separation simply by existing within a shared world and participating in its economic markets.

Meanwhile, the interweaving narratives that bind Lenny Xavier, Paul, and Annika together irrevocably alter the directions their lives take and illustrate how the consequences of one’s actions are larger and more widespread than is immediately apparent. Lenny Xavier, a Los Angeles music producer and Jonathan Alkaitis’s most important investor, becomes a link between Annika, who plays violin and sings with the Canadian band Baltica, and Paul, who ends up playing a critical role in the band’s future when he gives them some ecstasy, which turns out to be bead. Lenny and Paul never meet, but they’re connected through their mutual ties to Annika. At one point in time, Lenny served as a producer for Annika when she was on track to become a popstar. When Annika felt that Lenny and his team were pulling her away from her “artistic integrity,” she returned to Canada, where she began to make music in a way that was truer to her artistic vision, with Baltica. Had Annika not met Lenny and subsequently reinvented herself, she might not have begun to make music with Baltica (the electronica trio consisting of Annika, Theo, and Charlie Wu). Had Annika not made music with Baltica, she might not have met and garnered the admiration of Paul at a Toronto club one night. Had this interaction not occurred, Paul might not have offered Annika and Charlie Wu bad drugs, and Charlie might not have died of an overdose. So, in a hugely indirect and coincidental way, had Lenny Xavier not met and clashed with Annika, Charlie Wu might still be alive. Such logical connections are tenuous and largely speculative, but in a novel built upon such complicated ties between characters they come to illustrate the systems and series of coincidences that inextricably tie individuals to other people.

It’s tempting to see fortune and misfortune as random occurrences—as the rewards and casualties of an indifferent universe, as completely irrelevant to how a person behaves and the way they treat others. The Glass Hotel challenges this idea, however, and uses interconnected narratives and series of unlikely coincidences and connections to propose that, by virtue of one’s participation in a social system, every choice a person makes matters in some way, even if the consequences of that choice are made invisible by degrees of separation or the passage of time.