Previous
Enrico
Simone is Jonathan Alkaitis’s new receptionist in late 2008 when the Ponzi scheme implodes. She is young, naïve, and struggling financially at the time of the collapse. The night before his arrest, Alkaitis orders Simone to start shredding incriminating papers, which she does, though she hasn’t worked there long enough to know about the firm’s illegal activities. Simone will later serve as a witness in Alkaitis’s trial. In the immediate aftermath of Alkaitis’s arrest, Alkaitis’s distraught daughter Claire tells Simone that Simone is lucky: she isn’t complicit in the Ponzi scheme, and she’ll always have a juicy story to tell at cocktail parties. Simone heeds Claire’s advice, and the end of the novel depicts Simone entertaining coworkers with the story at a party in 2029. That Simone uses the disaster and suffering of Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme for entertainment and social points shows the small ways people can use others for personal gain.
Simone Quotes in The Glass Hotel
The The Glass Hotel quotes below are all either spoken by Simone or refer to Simone. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 11: Winter Quotes
“You know what’s permanent? You’re a person with a really excellent cocktail story. Ten, twenty years from now, at a cocktail party, you’ll be holding a martini in a circle of people, and you’ll be like, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time I worked for Jonathan Alkaitis?’ […] You get to walk away untarnished.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The night before Alkaitis’s arrest, his receptionist, Simone, accepts a ride home from Jonathan’s daughter Claire Alkaitis, who expresses wry jealousy over Simone’s ability to “walk away untarnished” from the Ponzi scheme that effectively ruined Claire’s life. Though Claire wasn’t involved in the fraudulent side of her father’s business, the crime shatters the image she had of her father, which, it’s fair to predict, will cause significant psychological damage. Simone, in contrast, has a much brighter future in store for her and even might be able to use the Ponzi scheme to her advantage. Claire’s prediction that Simone will be Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beat
Get the entire The Glass Hotel LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Simone Character Timeline in The Glass Hotel
The timeline below shows where the character Simone appears in The Glass Hotel. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 9: A Fairy Tale
...in a taxi to Jonathan’s office. When she arrives at the Gradia Building, the receptionist, Simone, ushers her into Jonathan’s office. Simone will be a key witness in the trial that...
(full context)
Chapter 10: The Office Chorus
...has “liquidity problems,” and that he’s arranged to receive a loan for some temporary relief. Simone enters the room with coffee and senses that something is gravely wrong. Ron smiles at...
(full context)
...18th floor, Olivia Collins is there, and Alkaitis seems to wince before he sees her. Simone brings them coffee in Alkaitis’s office. While she’s there, Alkaitis asks Simone if she can...
(full context)
The narrative switches to a scene between Alkaitis and Simone, when Alkaitis asks Simone to go to the office supply store and purchase some paper...
(full context)
When Simone and Alkaitis return to the 18th floor conference room, the Xavier boxes are there. Shortly...
(full context)
...amount to more than the company has in its accounts. Claire demands to know why Simone is shredding papers. Alkaitis lies, insisting that he just wants to clear space. Claire asks...
(full context)
...narrative flashes forward to the interrogations that occur the next year. When questioned about ordering Simone to shred the documents, Alkaitis will pretend not to understand the question. In his own...
(full context)
At 7:30, Harvey arrives with pizza. He offers some to Simone and tells her he’s going to take over the task of shredding: she can head...
(full context)
...is pacing around his house, trying to commit all its details to his memory. Meanwhile, Simone is in her Brooklyn apartment drinking wine with her roommates. Simone tells them about her...
(full context)
Chapter 11: Winter
...his office. In his place are two men in suits looking around through his things. Simone silently watches the men work before informing Oskar that Alkaitis was arrested this morning.
(full context)
Simone’s phone rings continuously, with angry people on the other end demanding to know what’s going...
(full context)
...Oskar is the last to leave the office. On his way out, he runs into Simone, who is carrying some things from Claire's office, one of which is a photo of...
(full context)
Claire, who seems almost sedated, quietly thanks Simone for retrieving her things before ordering the driver to take Simone home to East Williamsburg....
(full context)
Chapter 14: The Office Chorus
It’s 2029, and Simone is at a cocktail party in Atlanta, where she lives with her family. Exuberantly, she...
(full context)
...perspective and gives an overview of the trajectory of Alkaitis’s employees’ lives after his arrest. Simone is now in her 40s, by which point everyone who was convicted has served their...
(full context)
