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Part 2, Chapter 12
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, 1720. Addie has prepared for Luc’s arrival this time. She’s set the table, assembled a meal of fresh bread, cheese, and meat, and gotten a bottle of red wine. She has a home of her own now—a small, abandoned house that she spent weeks to make habitable. She is wearing a red silk dress and has done her hair. She wants to show him how capable she has become. She never wants Luc to come, but she has grown to expect his visits—and now, in refusing to come, he has intentionally let her down.
July 29 is here once more, and Addie seems determined to respond to Luc’s romantic overtures with a lavish meal of her own—and now, in what is a clear power play on Luc’s part, he has intentionally failed to show up in order to show her who holds all the cards in their relationship. Luc and Addie’s relationship is fantastical, yet it also metaphorically illustrates the fundamental vulnerability a person subjects themselves to when they enter into an intimate relationship of any kind, whether it be platonic or romantic.
Themes
Now, all Addie’s preparations seem stupid. She angrily tears at her dress and pulls down her hair. She throws the empty wine bottle (she’s long since finished the wine) against the wall. She tears the place apart, and then she screams. She’s angry at Luc—but also at herself. She falls to the floor and sleeps through the night and into tomorrow. Then she gets up, eats her now-spoilt feast, and decides to move on. This won’t be the last bad night she has, but from this point forward, she vows to replace her sadness with anger.
Addie is mad at herself because she’s forgotten an essential characteristic of her and Luc’s relationship: they are not mortals equally subjecting themselves to the possibility of heartbreak and disappointment that are part of any intimate relationship. Instead, Luc has all the power, and Addie is subject to whatever he wants to put her through.
Themes
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