The Invisible Legacy: Memory, Magic Realism, and Erasure
In this blog, I’m trying something a little different. Instead of a standard review, I diving deeper into the heart of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue to explore the big ideas beneath the surface. V.E. Schwab’s writing isn’t just beautifully crafted, it’s full of rich themes that deserve to be unpacked with the same seriousness we’d give to classic literature. From questions about memory and legacy to deeper issues of power and erasure, this novel has a lot in common with concepts found in critical theory. So, I’m taking a closer look at how Schwab weaves magic realism with ideas from feminism, intersectionality, and philosophy to create a story that sticks with you long after the final page.
V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a novel steeped in longing, defiance, and the quiet tragedy of being forgotten. At its core, the story asks: “What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?” In exploring this question, Schwab delivers more than a tale of immortality. It’s a meditation on legacy, memory, and how systems of power dictate who gets to be remembered and who fades into oblivion.
Through the lens of magic realism, Addie’s curse, where no one remembers her after they turn away from her, becomes more than just a fantastical conceit. It is a potent metaphor for the real-world experience of erasure. Addie’s invisible life mirrors the way oppressed groups, whether through gender, race, class, or other intersectional identities, are often pushed to the margins of collective memory. Magic realism, as critic Wendy B. Faris describes, is a narrative mode that “transgresses boundaries” (Ordinary Enchantments, 2004), and Schwab’s novel does just that, weaving the magical into the mundane to highlight how power operates quietly, insidiously, through forgetting.
Addie’s story begins with her refusal to conform to the expectations of 18th-century France, where women’s lives are largely circumscribed by marriage and domesticity. By making a Faustian bargain to escape societal constraints, Addie chooses freedom, but at a steep price. She gains immortality but is cursed to live a life where no one remembers her. As Addie herself reflects, “A life no one will remember. A story that doesn’t exist unless someone sees it” (Schwab, p. 173). Her curse is hauntingly familiar for anyone who has experienced systemic invisibility.
The novel’s reflection on memory and legacy can also be read through a feminist lens. Addie’s struggle for autonomy recalls Simone de Beauvoir’s famous assertion that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (The Second Sex, 1949), highlighting how Addie resists becoming the woman her society expects her to be. However, the curse operates as a hyperbolic extension of how women, historically, have had their achievements erased or credited to others.
Yet, while Addie’s plight is compelling, it also invites critique. Using intersectionality—a framework developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw—we can ask: whose stories are consistently erased? Crenshaw reminds us that “identity is multidimensional and cannot be captured through a single lens” (Mapping the Margins, 1991). While Addie’s gender informs her erasure, the novel remains largely silent on how race, class, or sexuality might compound this invisibility. Schwab’s Eurocentric focus limits the novel’s engagement with the full spectrum of marginalized identities, raising questions about which stories even speculative fiction tends to spotlight.
From a Foucauldian perspective, Addie’s invisibility reflects how power is exercised through surveillance and recognition—or the lack thereof. Michel Foucault noted that “visibility is a trap” (Discipline and Punish, 1977), suggesting that those who are seen are also controlled. Addie’s predicament flips this dynamic: she is free from societal control but suffers the existential consequence of non-recognition. Without being remembered, she loses not only relationships but the ability to shape history.
Still, Addie fights back. Her resistance comes through art, storytelling, and quiet disruptions. As she influences music, paintings, and stories—without anyone recalling her name—Addie leaves traces, or what Derrida would call the “trace” (Of Grammatology, 1967): “the mark of the absence of a presence.” Schwab’s novel becomes a meditation on how those pushed to the margins still shape culture, even if the dominant narrative refuses to acknowledge them.
Ultimately, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a bittersweet reminder that oppression often works by dictating who is remembered and who is erased. Yet, it also suggests that legacy exists in whispers, in echoes, in marks left behind. Whether through art, resistance, or the sheer act of survival, those who are forgotten still shape the world around them. The challenge, as readers, is to ask: whose marks have we overlooked—and why?
Featured Image by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
