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Evelyn Hugo’s Coming Clean
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
Monique researches Evelyn’s life and films. She stays late at work before heading home to a tiny apartment which her husband, David, half-emptied when he left five weeks ago. She thinks David was petty for taking the coffee table, since his new apartment in San Francisco is fully furnished. She orders dinner and takes a hot shower; she feels happiest in the shower, where she’s free of her responsibilities and failures. The prospect of interviewing Evelyn intimidates Monique, so she immerses herself in research and spends the next few evenings watching Evelyn’s old movies. She watches one clip so many times it appears in her dreams.
It's clear that Monique is taking her assignment seriously, partly because it has the potential to skyrocket her career, and partly because, as it now becomes clear, she finds it hard to go home to her empty apartment. Her love for the anonymity she finds while showering suggests that at this moment in her life, she’s feeling overwhelmed and uncertain, not just about her work or her relationship, but her identity as a whole—it’s easier to forget about it for a while.
Themes
Through her research, Monique understands that Evelyn is incredibly beautiful. Her favorite picture of Evelyn is from the 1967 Golden Globes. In the picture, Evelyn wears a low-cut dress with a high slit; two men stare at her body while she looks straight ahead. Monique concludes that Evelyn is someone who leaves people wanting more—like in the sex scene in Three A.M., in which her breasts were only visible for three seconds, attracting huge box-office numbers, allegedly because couples kept returning to see it.
All Monique’s research either focuses on, or eventually leads to, the subject of Evelyn’s beauty and appearance. It seems like Monique will have to work hard in her interviews to dive beneath the surface; at the same time, it’s clear from her obsessive research that Monique is just as transfixed by Evelyn’s façade as everyone else is.
Themes
