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
Paris, France. July 29, 1724. Remy is the opposite of Luc: his hair is blond, his eyes are blue, and he’s happy, open, and energetic. Plus, he’s “real.” They reach the cathedral, climb to the northern tower, and lay out their picnic. They sit close together, and Remy takes Addie’s hand in his. He asks Addie for her real name, and Addie says Anna—it’s close enough. Remy asks Addie about her life, and she tries to tell him as close to the truth as her curse will allow. She says she left everything behind to be free. Remy understands, noting that “Small places make for small lives.”
This distinction between who is and isn’t “real” seems important. It’s what makes Addie believe that what she and Remy have is more important than the relationship that she and Luc have built up over their years of knowing each other. Addie seems to think that Remy’s energy and openness—the things that make him human—are what make him “real.” This belief in Remy’s humanity is what allows her to open up to him as well as she does.
Themes
Addie asks Remy if he thinks life has value if a person doesn’t make any impression on the world. Remy thinks “there are many ways to matter.” Some people, like Voltaire, matter through their words. But the people who typeset Voltaire’s books mattered too—though their names aren’t listed on the book’s cover.
Addie’s question to Remy is a big one: she’s essentially asking him whether her life has meaning despite there being no evidence that she’s ever existed. Remy’s answer, then, should come as a small comfort to Addie: he’s saying that simply having some effect on history is enough to make a person meaningful, even if they—like the anonymous publishers who typeset Voltaire’s works—don’t get any recognition for their work.
Themes
Later, Remy brings Addie to his rented room at the lodging house. They have sex, and it's nothing like the sex work Addie is used to. It’s special, and Addie wishes she could erase the previous times from her memory. They fall asleep.
Compared to Addie’s earlier experiences being forced to engage in sex work, her intimate evening with Remy is happy and meaningful—it’s more like the fantasies she had about the stranger when she was an adolescent daydreaming in Villon, in part because it’s something she’s chosen for herself—not something her dire circumstances have forced upon her.
Themes
A few hours later, Remy wakes. He regards Addie awkwardly and confusedly; he doesn’t remember her. His forced politeness is painful for Addie to watch. She turns to leave, but before she can, Remy hands Addie three coins as “payment.” This hurts most of all. On her way out of Remy’s room, she palms his Voltaire booklet.
Remy seems to be the first person Addie has really let herself open up to since becoming invisible. For this reason, it’s especially hurtful and degrading that he should mistake her for a sex worker, given the intimacy and meaning she—but not he—recalls them sharing together only hours before.
Themes
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