Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory and Meaning
Love and Vulnerability
Freedom
Art, Creativity, and Expression
Wonder and Knowledge
Summary
Analysis
Villon-sur-Sarthe, France. July 30, 1714. George’s boots are far too big for Adeline’s feet, and they rub her skin raw. She has decided to walk toward Le Mans, the farthest from home she’s ever been. As she walks, she can hear the stranger’s voice in her head: “You wanted to be free[.]” Adeline reaches an orchard, where she picks fruit from the trees and eats it greedily. When she reaches a riverbank, she sits down to see how badly the boots have injured her feet. But when she removes the boots, her feet are unmarred. It’s dusk now. Adeline settles down in a nearby field to sleep. She removes the carved bird from her pocket. Adeline considers how she could take—but not break—the bird and wonders what other rules there are to learn.
Addie hears the stranger’s voice inside her head almost as a taunt, reminding her that he’s given her exactly what she’s asked for—freedom—and so she has only her foolishness to blame for her current, miserable loneliness. Also note that Addie refers to the god with whom she made the deal interchangeably as “the darkness” and “the stranger,” since the god assumed the appearance of her fantasy stranger. This section also reveals another cruel detail of Addie’s curse: she can feel pain, yet her body will always heal from it.
Themes
Now, unable to tell her story to any living being, Adeline looks at the bird and tells it the story of her life. Adeline fears that if she doesn’t tell her story to someone, she’ll start to forget it herself. Eventually, dusk gives way to night. Later, she will experience weak nights and curse at the darkness, dare him to confront her. But not tonight. Instead, she thinks of home: of Estele, who used to stand outside in the rain and preferred her own company to the company of others. Estele could have handled this solitary life.
That Addie feels compelled to tell her story to another living thing reinforces the important role that storytelling, creativity, and self-expression play in forming one’s identity and making one’s life meaningful. Addie’s new inability to express herself to others might make her lonely, but if she can’t even tell her story to herself, she might disappear altogether.
Themes
Adeline curls herself into a ball and tries to sleep. When she wakes, the sun is shining down on her. She feels woozy with hunger and sets out to find food. She reaches a larger town and smells fresh bread. She follows the scent to the village square, where a group of women are gathered around a communal oven, baking bread. Adeline has no money, which means she’ll have to steal. She kicks a nearby mule, who bucks and lurches in response. The ensuing chaos distracts the women long enough for Adeline to snatch a loaf of bread from the oven.
Addie’s painful hunger seems to be another cruel stipulation of her deal with the darkness: she can’t die of starvation, but she can feel the pain of it. That Addie cleverly distracts the village women in order to steal some of their bread shows her ingenuity as a character: even in her hopeless state, she keeps her wits about her in order to survive and thrive.
Themes
Adeline runs with her bread to a stable at the edge of town. The bread is underbaked and doughy, but she doesn’t care. “My name is Adeline,” she thinks to herself as she eats. Then she stops. She never liked the name Adeline, and now she can’t even say it aloud. Addie, though, “was a gift” that Estele gave her. It was the name of the girl who dreamed of freedom. She decides to become Addie from this day forward.
The reader may have noted that Addie is mostly “Adeline” in the pre-1714 sections and Addie in the modern sections, and here the novel reveals why: the name Addie “was a gift” from Estele that signified Addie’s dream of freedom, whereas Adeline was the name her mother called her—the name that bound her to others. Now, though lonely and uncertain of her future, Addie decides to embrace Estele’s name for her—and the freedom that name represents—and take on the world, as Estele would have wanted her to do.
Themes
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