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 29, 1764. Addie walks to the church in the center of Villon. She finds her father’s grave almost immediately. His name, Jean LaRue, is there, but the gravestone makes no mention of his craft or what kind of person he was. Addie notices his year of death: 1714, the year she left. She tries to remember if there were any signs of illness, but she can’t. But now, her memory of her parents is already escaping her. Seeing Estele’s grave saddens her, for Estele so wanted to be buried underneath a tree, not “in the shadow of a house she did not worship.” So, Addie walks to a small shed on the border of the churchyard, finds a trowel, and uses it to dig a sapling out of the soil. Then she replants the sapling over Estele’s grave.
Jean LaRue’s impersonal gravestone foregrounds the idea that ideas are stronger than memories. Jean’s gravestone memorializes him as a physical person who lived and died, but it can’t do justice to the person he was, the things he believed in, or the art he created during his years on earth. By contrast, Addie’s act of planting a sapling atop Estele’s grave is more powerful and meaningful because it’s an idea: it represents the beliefs Estele held in life, and her desire for freedom. The tree might not memorialize Estele’s physical name, but it powerfully evokes the person that Estele truly was.
Themes
Next, Addie visits Estele’s abandoned hut at the edge of the woods. Estele’s garden has become tangled and overgrown since her death. Addie walks through the front door. It’s damp and dark inside—and empty. Addie assumes that Estele’s belongings were distributed among the villagers after her death, “deemed public property simply because she did not wed.” Addie goes into Estele’s garden and takes what beans and carrots she can. She carries the vegetables back into the house and cooks them over the hearth.
The novel repeatedly shows how Addie’s gender, in particular, is one of the ways that society threatens her hold on freedom. This scene foregrounds this idea, with Addie’s remark that Estele’s wishes weren’t honored, and her personal effects “deemed public property simply because she did not wed.”
Themes
Then, just as Addie has expected, Luc appears behind her. Luc mocks Estele, noting how she talked of freedom—but “was so lonely in the end.” He says that Addie should have been here for Estele when Estele was ill. Luc’s words feel like a slap. Enraged, Addie runs toward Luc and hits him in the face. She thinks she has hurt him—but then he begins to laugh. And then his face transforms from a man’s to something frighteningly unhuman.
Luc’s insulting remarks about Estele double as insulting remarks about Addie: Addie, like her mentor Estele, longed for freedom—and she has it now, but obtaining it required her to abandon the people she cared about. Luc’s mocking enrages Addie because there’s truth to it: Addie did abandon Estele. And while that abandonment allowed Addie to live an enriched, meaningful life that wouldn’t have been possible if she’d stayed in Villon, Addie is left to wonder whether everything she has experienced in her travels was worth the regret she feels at having abandoned Estele in her hour of need.
Themes
Luc claims that Addie has forgotten whom she’s dealing with—that maybe he has been too easy on her. Suddenly, pain shoots up through Addie’s body, and she feels achy and old. Her hands sprout wrinkles, and her skin becomes papery and fragile. Addie had only asked for life, not youth, but Luc has given her both—and Addie’s youth has gone to her head. Luc tells Addie that he’ll make her suffering stop—all she has to do is surrender. Addie refuses. For a moment, she thinks it’s all over. But then, the ache goes away, and her youth returns. And then Luc is gone.
This scene reinforces the power struggle between Luc and Addie that is one of the novel’s central conflicts: Addie is not only continuing to live to experience the adventure she’s longed for, but also to prove to Luc that he’s underestimated her. Here, though, Luc reminds Addie that they are not fighting a fair fight, for his godly power far exceeds hers.
Themes
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