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 18, 2014. Henry and Addie have one more exhibit to see. This one is set up in a space made of plexiglass. Inside are shelves of clear glass. There’s a sign mounted above them that reads “YOU ARE THE ART” and bowls of paint in every aisle. People who have visited the exhibit before them have painted signatures, handprints, and patterns on the walls. Addie places her finger in the bowl of green paint and draws a spiral on the wall—but it immediately disappears. But Henry has an idea. He dips his own hand into the paint and then tells Addie to place hers over his: they can draw together. And when they paint on the wall with Addie’s hand over Henry’s, the paint doesn’t disappear this time. Addie laughs, overjoyed.
Addie and Henry’s communal artmaking experience foregrounds the importance of human interaction. It’s not so much Addie’s inability to be photographed or tell her story that makes her invisible, so much as her inability to connect and interact with others in meaningful, memorable ways. Her happiness here comes, in part, from her ability to create art for the first time in centuries, but more than this, it’s the ability to experience something joyous with another person who sees, understands, and knows her. And the fact that this major turning point in Addie’s life happens as she is creating art reaffirms the important role that expression and creativity play in creating meaning as well.
Themes
And then, for the first time in years, she draws: birds, trees, gardens, a workshop. Finally, she guides Henry’s hand along the glass and spells out her name in cursive: Addie LaRue. Henry can tell that the curves that make up the letters are more important than any of the other images they’ve made. Afterward, Addie pulls Henry out of the exhibit, onto the subway, and back to Henry’s apartment. There, she presses a pen into his hand, and he writes her name, repeatedly.
For so many years, Luc has been the only person to speak Addie’s name, and he’s used this power to control Addie and rob her of her personal identity. But now, she reclaims her name and frees herself. And the fact that she does so with the help of Henry—with someone she cares about—doesn’t diminish her reclaimed individuality. To the contrary, it strengthens her individuality: she reclaims her identity as “Addie LaRue” in speaking that name to herself, and in letting another person know and call her by that name.
Themes
