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
New York City. March 12, 2014. Addie heads uptown, reading The Odyssey as she walks. She’s nearly at the Baxter when she sees James St. Clair emerge from a black sedan. She’ll have to find somewhere else to stay the night. Addie heads toward the East Village instead. She approaches a building and smiles at a man who is exiting; he holds the door open for her, and she slips inside. Addie walks up four flights of stairs and finds a silver key above a steel door that opens onto the building’s rooftop. Sam, one of Addie’s former lovers, showed her this. Sam was acting on impulse that night, but Addie had been seeing Sam for two months by that point. It was a passionate affair—but then, passionate affairs are all Addie can have.
This scene helps to underscore just how difficult and unpredictable Addie’s life is—the ease of existence she has given up for her immortality. Here, she has to suddenly find a new place to stay because James (who, due to Addie’s curse, will not recognize her as his friend) will be at his apartment, where she planned to stay the night. Addie’s recollection of her romance with Sam further underscores this point: Addie’s curse has prohibited her from developing anything beyond a one-night, passionate affair with Sam, since Sam’s memory resets each new night she and Addie spend together. In other words, Addie has given up both security and meaningful intimacy to have her freedom.
Themes
Addie rests her back against the brick wall that encircles the rooftop. It’s quiet up here. The door slams open, and two guys, two girls, and Sam appear on the rooftop. Sam’s blond curls are darker than they were the last time Addie saw her. Sam’s arms are dotted with paint, and Addie wonders what she’s working on these days. Sam sees Addie and walks over. She greets Addie with the same lines she uses every time. Sam isn’t cheesy, though—she “has an artist’s eye, present, searching,” and considers Addie thoroughly each time they “meet.” Addie asks to bum a cigarette off Sam, just as she has done so many times before. Addie and Sam are standing close together now. When Sam touches Addie’s freckles and says, “You have stars,” Addie thinks to herself, “Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vecu.”
Sam seems to be an artist, and that Addie is attracted to her further highlights art’s importance in Addie’s life and to the novel as a whole. Maybe Addie admires or gravitates toward Sam because Sam, through her art, can do what Addie cannot: make her mark on the world and leave behind creative, meaningful evidence of who she was as a person. Addie, by contrast, lacks the ability to immortalize herself, despite (ironically) being literally immortal. This poses the question: does a person’s life matter if only they know what it meant? If nobody else cares or knows about their life?
Themes
When one of the boys calls Sam over, Addie has to resist the urge to hold closely to Sam. But she lets go, and Sam returns to her friends, and then the group heads inside. Sam leaves last, making one final glance at Addie before the door shuts behind her. Addie thinks that being forgotten is like going crazy: “You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real.” It’s like the Zen koan about whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if nobody is around to hear it.
This scene parallels many of the earlier scenes in which Addie voluntarily leaves a friend or lover. In these situations, Addie decides that she’d rather leave and cut her losses than stick around and experience the pain of being forgotten all over again. The novel continues to emphasize how Addie has given up meaningful, sustained human connection to have her freedom—and that this is something that continues to affect her, even as she continues to take advantage of her deal with the darkness and continue living.
Themes
