Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ambition vs. Morality
Femininity, Sexuality, and Power
Truth and Identity
Family
Summary
Analysis
Evelyn’s history picks up a few months after the move to Spain. In Aldiz, Connor transforms “like a seed sprouting.” She plays Scrabble with Celia and helps Evelyn prepare dinner, but she connects most strongly with Robert, who teaches her how to play poker and paints her bedroom for her. Connor stops partying, starts to get good grades in school, and gets into Stanford. The night before Evelyn and Connor leave to move Connor into Stanford, they and Celia and Robert go out to a small restaurant; Robert gives Connor a gift of a poker set. Evelyn suspects that part of Robert’s reason for marrying her was so that he could have a family, despite never wanting to settle down with one woman.
The natural imagery with which the novel describes Connor emphasizes the simple, more rural lifestyle that Evelyn and her family have now that they’ve left Manhattan. Robert begins to act as a father figure for Connor, which seems to be the grounding she needs to reset her priorities, and this highlights the importance of family support—however unconventional—in one’s ability to feel safe and important.
Themes
Once Connor leaves for school, Evelyn and Celia spend more time together than ever, not having to worry about gossip columns or being recognized in public. Evelyn feels like she’s living the life she truly wants. She even starts to speak Spanish again, first because she needs to when she’s out and about, but after a while she even speaks it at home.
Now that Evelyn has no secondary identity to uphold and only Celia to care for, Evelyn’s life becomes simpler than it ever has been, and elements of her core identity, including her cultural heritage, find their way back to her. This suggests that the price Evelyn paid for fame wasn’t an irrevocable sacrifice: she still has the time and freedom to be the person she wants to be, despite the pragmatic decisions she made during her career.
Themes
Celia’s health begins to deteriorate. She tells Evelyn that she sometimes regrets the time they wasted not being together. Evelyn reminds her that they’re both stubborn, and Celia adds that the world didn’t make their relationship easy. Evelyn can’t bear the thought of losing Celia. She asks Celia to marry her—a “spiritual promise” that they can make at that moment in bed without religious approval. Celia agrees. She and Evelyn face each other and hold hands, and Evelyn performs a kind of wedding ceremony. They exchange vows and wrap hair ties around each other’s fingers in place of rings. Evelyn ends the ceremony by kissing Celia, whom she now considers to be her wife.
Just as they consider their bond to be fated, Evelyn and Celia seem to acknowledge that their lengthy periods of separation were also inevitable. There was nothing they could have done to be together longer or to have had an easier relationship. Evelyn has been married seven times, but this time—in a way, the eighth time—she’s finally in control. Her relationship with Celia is one in which she has total agency and no obligation to the law, the media, or a possessive or aggressive man.
Themes
