Invitation To The Game

Lisse is the protagonist and the narrator of the novel. As a child, she was separated from her parents and sent to a Government School. At the start of the novel, she is a teenager on the cusp of entering the adult world. She does not have a particular talent that distinguishes her from her peers, aside from an interest in reading. At her graduation ceremony, she discovers that The Government has designated her as unemployed. She moves to the city with other unemployed students from her school and experiences a loss of innocence when she sees the street violence and gangs that dominate her neighborhood.

Lisse is observant of her surroundings and tries to avoid conflict. Knowing that the Government’s Thought Police are watching her actions makes her feel anxious, but she is also concerned about crime and is grateful when the thought police round up the criminals responsible for attacking her friend Alden. Like the rest of her group, Lisse is relatively conformist. She prefers to abide by the law and looks down on those who take drugs or commit crimes. As an unemployed person, she does not have much agency, but she mostly accepts The Government’s power over her life.