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 Orleans, Louisiana. July 29, 1970. Luc and Addie are dining in a bar in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Luc says he loves her. Then he pulls a black box from his pocket and places it in front of her: a gift. Addie opens the box and finds a key inside. He has given her a home, Luc explains. Addie assumes that Luc is messing with her, but then he leads her through the streets to a yellow house at the end of Bourbon Street. The door opens on a room with high ceilings, furniture, and empty spaces waiting to be filled with her things. Addie knows that this home won’t last, but for now, she’s happy.
This scene depicts Luc and Addie as a couple. Though Addie never quite lets her guard down—she doubts that Luc means it when he says he loves her—she allows herself to be happy anyway, reinforcing the novel’s central claim that human connection is worth the suffering and heartbreak it can lead to.
Themes
Luc and Addie stroll through the French Quarter. They’re almost home when Luc excuses himself; he has something to attend to. Luc tells Addie to go home, but Addie stays behind to see what he’s up to. Luc goes to a shop around the corner. An older woman is locking the door. She turns around and sees Luc. When Luc tells the woman her time is up, she doesn’t plead. Instead, she tells Luc she understands—and she’s tired. Luc wraps his arms around the woman and takes her soul. Somehow, to Addie, the woman’s acceptance is more disturbing than if she were to have begged for her life. Because it makes sense to Addie: she’s tired too.
This scene reminds Addie why it’s prudent never to let her guard down around Luc: even if Luc does love her, he’s still a powerful, supernatural entity who could easily do to her as he did to the woman outside the shop. Witnessing Luc take the woman’s soul also forces Addie to consider the disturbing possibility that she’s gone along with Luc’s romantic overtures not because she loves him, but because she’s finally ready to give up.
Themes
That night, back at the yellow house, Luc wraps his arms around Addie’s shoulders, and it reminds Addie of the way he wrapped his arm around the older woman earlier that night.
In seeing herself as the older woman, Addie reminds herself that the nature of her and Luc’s relationship isn’t romantic—it’s professional. Luc might claim to love her, but, Addie fears, it’s more likely that he’s only saying this to get what he really wants from her: her soul.
Themes
