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Part 6, Chapter 18
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. September 1, 2014 (3 nights until the end). Three nights before Henry’s last night, Addie sneaks out of bed and walks to the Merchant. She sits at the bar and orders a shot of tequila. Luc appears beside her. “Shouldn’t you be with your love?” he asks. But he isn’t mocking her. Instead, he strokes her hair and tells her the pain will pass. “All things do.” Luc sits down next to Addie and asks if her human love was everything she thought it would be. “No,” she replies truthfully. It was complicated, and “messy” and “wonderful” and “so fragile it hurt.” All the same, she realizes, “it was worth every single moment.”
Here, Addie restates many of the points she made during her last meeting with Luc: that human love is “messy” and complicated, but that this is what makes it so “wonderful” and rewarding to experience. Addie’s ideas about love align with her broader view of life: though both can be painful and plagued by uncertainty, “every single moment” is worth living because you never know what will happen next. By contrast, the certainty and control that characterize Luc’s immortal life (and his views on love) might eliminate the possibility of pain, but this also makes life boring, predictable, and ultimately meaningless.
Themes
Addie turns to Luc and tells him that Henry shouldn’t die just to prove Luc’s point. Luc tries to tell Addie that Henry made a deal, but Addie reminds Luc what he once told her about deals being “rewritten.” Then she offers to surrender her soul to Luc in exchange for Henry’s life. She tells Luc that he was right all along: she’s not human and hasn’t been for a long time. She’s tired of losing all the humans in her life. But she and Luc are the same and will never lose each other. So, if Luc agrees to spare Henry, Addie will be Luc’s “as long as you want me by your side.” Luc pauses. Then he says, “I accept.”
Note Addie’s language in this section: she speaks about deals being “rewritten,” evoking the language of storytelling. With this, the cryptic advice Addie gave Henry on the rooftop becomes clear: she was trying to tell him that she has “rewritten” their story—their deal, surrendering herself to Luc so that Henry can live out his natural life. Here, Addie frames her proposed new deal as a surrender to Luc: she claims that she’s thought about things and concluded that he’s right: that mortal love is characterized by loss and pain, and that she’s more like Luc than she is like humans, anyway. But given Addie’s centuries-long battle to outwit and defeat Luc, it seems out of character for her to suddenly yield to him, so the reader may logically assume that Addie’s deference is merely a front—and that she has one last trick up her sleeve. Regardless, with this “rewritten” deal, Addie demonstrates her selfless love for Henry by surrendering herself so he may live.
Themes
