50 pages • 1 hour read
Suzanne YoungThe Program
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Sloane Barstow
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of death by suicide, depression, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, and psychological abuse and manipulation.
Sloane Barstow is the novel’s protagonist. She is a 17-year-old girl who lives in an area of the world that has implemented The Program. She is a strong, resilient character, even though she has trouble trusting herself. Sloane depends on people around her for support, such as Brady, James, and Realm. However, when Sloane enters The Program, she fights against their malpractice to keep a sense of autonomy. Sloane is in love with James Murphy, and her main stress revolves around losing his love or having him forget about her. James’s return without his memories causes Sloane to fall into a depression, which eventually sends her to The Program.
Sloane’s main internal conflict revolves around her struggle to control her emotions. As the dystopian society takes away everything that Sloane loves, she struggles because of the constriction of not being able to express herself. Sloane cannot process her grief over Brady’s death because her parents are scared that it is a sign of suicidal ideation. Instead, Sloane suppresses her grief, which only makes her connection to James grow stronger. Sloane experiences constant surveillance from The Program and her parents, which increases her stress and depression. The Program’s subtle plan to replace Sloane’s love for James with Realm does not work because The Program does not understand the origin of her connection to James. Sloane’s devotion to James goes beyond her memories of him, which is why even after The Program erases her memories, she feels drawn to him. Sloane’s unwavering commitment to James triumphs over The Program’s desire to control and manipulate them because Sloane refuses to let society dictate who she loves.
Sloane’s resistance against The Program sets up the possibility for her to fight against the oppressive society she lives in. Even though Sloane knows that The Program will succeed in stealing her memories, she never gives up hope. Sloane’s decision to hide her ring and the picture of Brady and James shows that she believes in the possibility of remembering what these items meant to her. Similarly, Sloane chooses to take the purple pill in The Program because she feels desperate to hold on to any part of herself. Even though Realm tries to convince her that the purple pill will not give her memories back, Sloane’s decision to take the pill shows how her intuition is correct. Sloane’s hope for a better future, as well as her trust in her own emotions, allows for her reunion with James and their decision to fight against The Program.
James Murphy
James Murphy is Sloane’s love interest. He is a 17-year-old boy with blond hair and blue eyes. James has a rebellious personality, which is why The Program watches him even after he has his memories wiped. James’s love for Sloane causes him to remain strong, and Sloane relies on him. However, once Miller dies by suicide, James experiences depression and can no longer keep up a façade of normalcy. James has a tattoo on his arm of the names of the people he loves who have died by suicide, which he hopes will help retain his memory of them. The Program removes this tattoo, erasing James’s tribute to his loved ones.
James struggles with issues of abandonment. Since his mother abandoned him when he was a child, he has trouble trusting people around him. This is why his connection with Sloane is so important. James clings to his relationship with Sloane because everyone else has left him in his life, either through abandonment or through death by suicide. James allows Sloane space to grieve for Brady but rarely takes the time to grieve himself. This repression causes his breakdown after Miller dies, when he finally snaps and scratches Miller’s name into his arm with a knife rather than tattooing it. James’s depression causes a flip in his relationship with Sloane, where she must be strong for him rather than the other way around.
After James comes out of The Program, he does not remember Sloane or anything else from his life before. However, he retains his attraction to Sloane because he feels drawn to protecting her. James expresses frustration over his love for Sloane because it seems unfounded to him. Once James learns about their history together before The Program, he decides that he wants to honor the part of him that loved Sloane before the erasure of his memories. However, his repetition of how he treated Sloane before The Program, such as buying the plastic ring for her and taking her to the river, shows him that his love for Sloane still exists subconsciously. Despite the gap in memory, James learns to trust his instincts like Sloane and believes the feeling that tells him that he is meant to be with her, even if he does not know why.
Michael Realm
Michael Realm is Sloane’s other love interest inside of The Program. Realm has a scar on his neck from when he attempted suicide, although he has no memory of this because of his treatment. Within The Program, Realm acts as a stand-in for James; however, Sloane’s love for James prevents her from completely falling in love with Realm. After Realm’s suicide attempt and subsequent treatment, he signs a contract to work for The Program because he has no one waiting for him. His job in the Wellness Center is to foster an emotional connection with patients so that they have an easier time integrating into society. Despite the erasure of his memories and his disagreement with some of their practices, Realm does not believe that The Program is completely evil and thinks that it can still help people. Realm is a mysterious character because Sloane learns that he has ties with the rebels against The Program, even though he does not believe in its abolishment.
Realm cares for Sloane, but his actions do not always align with these feelings. Realm betrays Sloane by working with The Program to target her memories and make them easier to erase. When Sloane confronts Realm about his place in The Program, Realm drugs Sloane to erase her knowledge of his work with The Program rather than face the consequences of his actions. This destroys any hope for a future with her because, even without the memory of what he did, Sloane can never fully trust him. Realm realizes that he has lost Sloane’s trust after they get out of The Program. When Realm kisses Sloane, she pulls away from him because of her intuition about James and Realm’s betrayal. Once Realm realizes that Sloane will never fully trust him, he decides to leave the orange pill with his sister Anna in case Sloane wants to restore her memories. Although Sloane does not make the decision immediately, Realm knows that he must allow whatever decision she wants to make if he truly loves her. In the Epilogue, Young reveals that Realm’s actions with Sloane are required with every patient that he meets in The Program to gain their trust. This creates further distrust and moral grayness in his character. However, his slip of the tongue by calling Ally “Sloane” shows that his connection with Sloane was real, even if he lied and manipulated her to steal her memories.
Lacey Klamath
Lacey Klamath is Sloane’s childhood best friend. She is a rebellious, outspoken girl. Lacey is one of the first people that Sloane sees taken into The Program against her will. Lacey’s parents call The Program after they find QuikDeath in her room. After Lacey returns, Sloane notices that she no longer dyes her hair and has changed her entire aesthetic. Although The Program tries to change Lacey’s rebellious attitude by dressing her the opposite of how she used to, Lacey retains her personality. Lacey’s inability to remember her friends propels the narrative forward. When Miller approaches Lacey about their previous relationship, she does not remember him, and this knowledge eventually pushes Miller to die by suicide.
After Sloane gets out of The Program, she makes friends with Lacey at school. Although neither of them remembers their friendship from before, they feel drawn to each other. This friendship shows The Persistence of Emotion and Human Connection because though Lacey and Sloane cannot explain the depth of their friendship without their memories, they still feel a subconscious draw toward one another. Lacey’s suspicious attitude toward the handlers and The Program reignites resistance in Sloane. Lacey warns Sloane that the handlers always watch them, suggesting that she should be wary of what she does in private. Although Lacey cannot speak about how she has joined the resistance, Sloane learns at the end that Lacey and Kevin will meet her in Idaho to take her to the other rebels against The Program. Even without her memories, The Program cannot break Lacey’s rebellious nature. Lacey explains to Sloane that she was docile at first as a returner because she felt disoriented, but she felt herself regaining the urge to fight against the oppressive society after being out of The Program for a few months. This reveals that no matter how hard The Program works to erase people’s identities through memory loss, it can never remove a person’s personality. Even though Lacey does not know who she wants to fight against, she understands that the world she lives in wants to control her at all costs, and she does not want to give up.
