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From the start, Letty shows herself to be stubborn and driven, determined to succeed as a woman at Oxford and defy sexist expectations. However, the sheer gratefulness that she feels as a result of her admittance to Oxford, combined with the guilt of having benefited from her brother’s death, is partly what blinds her to the truth of Robin, Ramy, and Victoire’s experiences. In her view, they are lucky to be at Oxford at all; why rock the boat, or “bite the hand that feeds them”? Her insistence that they should be “grateful” highlights Letty’s misguided belief that being a woman at Oxford offers her insight into the struggles faced by the rest of her cohort. To her, their situations are the same; she doesn’t understand that, as people of color at a British institution that both needs and rejects them and exploits their homelands for profit, the other three feel a sense of complicity in their own dehumanization. This emphasis on gratitude also echoes the “civilizing mission” inherent in European colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries—that is, countries such as Britain attempted to justify their violent oppression and exploitation of non-European nations by insisting it was their moral duty to "civilize" them, for which those nations should be grateful. It’s clear, as the daughter of an admiral and from the way she speaks about the Empire, that Letty has internalized a sense of British superiority.

Letty demonstrates an innate understanding of, and adherence to, class and society, solidifying a clear dividing line between her and the others and foreshadowing her unwillingness to align herself with Hermes. Her class reflects her own complicity and the extent to which she benefits from, and is shielded by, the harm caused by the British Empire. Several times referred to as an “English rose,” Letty is unable to accept the harsh realities of injustice because of her privilege. Her attempts at altruism and kindness come off as patronizing, her insistence on “peaceful, respectable, civilized” resistance further proof of her loyalty to the Empire. Because British colonialism and institutionalized racism do not directly impact her, she ultimately chooses ignorance and complicity.

As a white woman, Letty is afforded far more leniency than the rest of her cohort. She is not identified as a person of interest in the murder of Professor Lovell, and despite everything, she is able to return to a society that never welcomed Robin, Ramy, or Victoire in the first place. By the novel’s end, she has fully convinced herself of the inevitability of the Empire and the fruitlessness of revolution, and Victoire, in the Epilogue, makes it clear she knows that her own survival threatens Letty’s worldview.

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