Ruthanne Henry Character Analysis

Ruthanne Henry is the author of a well-known children’s book that Joanna likes to read to Kim. Joanna meets Ruthanne in the library shortly after Ruthanne moves to Stepford with her husband and children. Ruthanne—who is Black—tells Joanna that she suspects the women in Stepford are racist, since they’ve been so flat and unwelcoming. Joanna, however, suggests that this isn’t necessarily because the women are racist but because they oddly don’t care about anything other than housework. She explains her and Bobbie’s theories about what turns the women in Stepford into such passive, subservient people, but Ruthanne insists that nothing could possibly force such a transformation on her. Later, at the very end of the novel, Ruthanne sees Joanna in the supermarket and is stunned to discover that she has become just like all of the other lifeless, passive women in town. Still, she doesn’t think much of it, though the novel makes it clear that Ruthanne will be the next woman to be turned into a Stepford robot.