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 13, 2014. Addie wakes up and feels someone touching her cheek. It’s Sam, who has gone up on the roof to have a cigarette. She changes her mind when she sees Addie, though. It’s freezing outside, and Sam orders Addie to follow her inside. Sam is a painter, and her apartment is full of art. Addie and Sam are in the kitchen now. Sam hands Addie a cup of coffee. “You have stars,” Sam says, and Addie thinks, “Déjà vu.”
Addie’s response of “Déjà vu” to Sam’s remark about her “stars” (freckles) is an attempt at wry humor: Addie feels that she’s experienced this scene before because she has—though Sam, enchanted by the darkness’s power, has no memory of Addie. It’s also important to note that Sam is an artist, a characteristic that, given Addie’s predilection for art and artists, seems to be what has drawn Addie to Sam.
Themes
Addie has never seen Sam like this. She’s woken up beside her in the morning, but Sam is always apologetic, ashamed that she’s forgotten the previous night. When Sam asks Addie her name, Addie responds, “Madeline,” the closest she can get to speaking her name aloud. Sam looks intently at Addie and says she’d like to paint her sometime; Addie doesn’t remind Sam that she already has painted her. Sam explains her portraits to Addie now, though Addie has heard Sam’s explanation countless times before. It’s said that people are like snowflakes—no two are the same—and Sam thinks the same is true of skies. So she paints people as the type of sky they are.
So far, the novel has shown how Addie’s curse prevents her from leaving her mark on the world—she cannot utter her name aloud, she cannot tell people about her past, and everything she writes dissolves immediately. So, if Sam really has painted Addie, this will complicate the reader’s—and Addie’s—understanding of how her curse works. Specifically, it would suggest that there’s something different and special about the interpretative nature of art that allows it—but nothing else—to preserve something of Addie’s essence.
Themes
Once, when Addie asked Sam what kind of sky she (Addie) was, Sam beamed, grabbed her supplies, and began to paint Addie. Sam’s painting depicted Addie as a night sky, in heavy layers of black and gray paints. On top of this, Sam added silver dots for Addie’s freckles. Now, in the kitchen, Sam says she wishes she could show Addie her favorite painting, One Forgotten Night, but she sold it to a collector. The painting was hard to part with: it depicted a girl whose identity Sam can’t seem to remember, no matter how hard she tries. Sam looks at Addie and says that Addie reminds her of the painting.
Though Sam forgets who her portrait depicts, the painting itself remains in existence. This detail complicates what the reader knows about Addie’s curse and poses an interesting question about what, exactly, art represents—reality, or a person’s interpretation or idea of reality? Contrarily, is there an ideal, objective version of reality that exists outside of subjective interpretation?
Themes
Addie tells Sam she should get going. Sam pleads with Addie to stay, and Addie wants to stay: she wants to shower with Sam, then sit in the living room and see how Sam will paint her today. But it’s too painful to live this life that will have no future. “Sorry,” Addie says to Sam, her heart breaking as she says it.
Addie leaves Sam of her own accord, just as she left Toby earlier. It’s as though choosing when she leaves—and when the people she cares about forget her—allows her to maintain a degree of choice and freedom regarding the curse that otherwise completely controls her life and relationships.
Themes
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