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Chapter 13
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
Back in the present, it’s been dark for hours. Evelyn tells Monique to pick back up tomorrow. She mentions that Frankie has emailed about a photoshoot, and Monique says she hasn’t told Vivant the plan for the story. Monique knows she has to tell Frankie something.
Now that Evelyn knows Frankie wants a photoshoot, time is running out for Monique to decide what to tell Frankie. Monique’s caught between pleasing both of them and securing her own interests.
Themes
Monique arrives home to the package from Monique’s mother. It's too heavy to carry. She opens it to find Monique’s father’s albums full of photos from movie sets. She remembers the job he took in Vancouver a year before he died. When she and her mom visited him, she asked him why he had to take this job so far away, and he told her that when she grew up, she’d need to find a job that she cared about, too. During her freshman year, she realized she loved telling stories. That led to journalism school, freelancing, and finally working at Vivant. She realizes that that conversation with her father led her to this point in her life, and she questions whether she’d have taken it so seriously if he hadn’t died.
Monique’s father’s influence on her life is similar to the influence Evelyn’s mother had on Evelyn’s life—a coincidence that hints there might be more linking the two characters together. Further suggesting their link is the fact that Monique’s father worked in the movie industry and, as his many photo albums prove, was deeply invested in the work he did. Monique’s question about her father’s role in her life adds to the fateful undertone of this moment—it prompts the reader to wonder once again why Evelyn chose Monique to write her story.
Themes
At the end of the final album, Monique finds a photo of herself with her parents at a barbecue when she was four. At that point, people still called her by her first name, Elizabeth—Monique is her middle name. After Monique’s father died, Monique and Monique’s mother realized that she should go by Monique, the name her father chose. Monique notices how beautiful her parents look in the picture and considers how hard it must have been for them, a white woman and a Black man, to build a happy life in the 1980s.
Monique’s late father has shaped her identity in addition to her ambition. The arrival of the photo albums presents an opportunity for Monique to look into the past, and by looking at the photos, she makes an indirect, subconscious link between her own history and the history she’s immersed in during her interviews with Evelyn.
Themes
Monique didn’t meet anyone who looked like her until she started school, when she became friends with another mixed-race kid. She grew up feeling like two halves, and after her father died, she felt “one-half [her] mother and one-half lost.” But now, looking at the photo, she realizes that she isn’t two halves, but one whole, loved person. She wishes she could send her dad a letter. Back in Evelyn’s study, Monique tells Evelyn to pick up from where she left off. Evelyn laughs and comments on Monique’s confidence.
It's the image of family that confirms Monique’s identity as a complex, complete, and loved person, which emphasizes the influence that having a caring family has on one’s self-worth. When Monique remembers how deeply her family cares about her, the burden of her complex mixed-race identity becomes lighter. It seems like this cathartic moment also instils a sense of professional confidence in Monique.
Themes
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