66 pages 2 hours read

Catherine Fisher

Incarceron

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007

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Character Analysis

Finn/Giles

Finn is one of the novel’s protagonists, and many of the sections are filtered through his perspective. However, Finn’s knowledge of his own situation is limited because he has no memory of his life before the approximate age of 15, and he is only 18 during the novel’s main events. He is an inmate of Incarceron and has been told that he’s a “cell-born,” meaning he was created by the prison and has never been beyond its boundaries. Finn was allegedly born not as a baby, but as a 15-year-old. However, Finn cannot shake the feeling that he was born outside and was later incarcerated for some unknown reason. He has flashes of memories from his past, which others dismiss as “visions.” This is apparently common for cell-borns, who are generally regarded as psychic but are also prone to mental and physical illnesses. Finn is brave and smart, and he also displays a stronger sense of morality than many inmates of Incarceron. For example, he does not support enslavement, murder, or discrimination against “half-men” (cyborgs). Other inmates argue that to survive Incarceron, they must resort to immoral activities such as murder and robbery, but Finn attempts to live a moral life.