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Part 4, Chapter 16
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. December 31, 2013. Henry is at a New Year’s Eve party at Robbie’s place. Henry holds a beer with one hand and a man who is kissing him with the other. The man is way out of Henry’s league, and Henry has been drinking too much. When the man starts to unbuckle Henry’s belt, Henry stops him and asks if he even wants Henry. The man acts like Henry has just asked the world’s dumbest question; Henry, he reasons, is “gorgeous. Sexy. Smart.” Henry asks the man how he could possibly know this—he and Henry have only just met—and the man can’t explain it.
Henry has only lived with Luc’s curse for a few months now, but it’s already gotten old for him. Before, still reeling from grief over his recent breakup, Henry would have pounced at the chance to have this attractive man swooning over him. Now, though, Henry sees the man as an empty vessel who is only interested in Henry because he lacks the agency not to be interested in Henry. Before, Henry thought that vulnerability was a curse, and now he sees that the opposite is true: vulnerability is a blessing, for it is what makes real intimacy possible.
Themes
Henry leaves the man and wanders into Robbie’s room. He opens the window and climbs out onto the fire escape, though it’s freezing out. After a while, Bea opens the window and asks what’s wrong. Henry explains that Robbie is in love with him. Bea says Robbie has always loved Henry. Henry argues that Robbie isn’t in love with the person Henry really is—he’s in love with the person he wants Henry to be. Bea says that Henry doesn’t need to change—he’s perfect as he is. Then she says that Henry is “an amazing listener” and “always there when [she] needs [him],” neither of which are true. Henry realizes that Bea sees Henry as the friend she wants him to be—not the friend he actually is.
This scene deepens Henry’s despair. Up until now, it seemed that Bea was, inexplicably, the last person not to view Henry through enchanted, rose-tinted glasses. But now, with her remarks about what “an amazing listener” and reliable friend Henry is (both things Henry knows aren’t exactly true), it’s clear that Bea, too, can no longer see Henry for his true self.
Themes
Henry asks Bea what she’d ask for if she could have anything. “What’s the cost?” Bea asks. Henry says the cost is her soul. Bea pauses, and then answers, “Happiness.” When Henry answers that he’d like to be loved, Bea’s eyes remain misty—but they grow deeply sad, too. “You can’t make people love you,” she tells him. It wouldn’t be real. Henry suddenly feels like the biggest fool in the world.
