Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses miscarriage, sexual assault (of characters who are minors), forced adoption, and racism.

Ruby Pearsall begins The House of Eve as a Black teenage girl living in poverty. As the novel opens, she is objectified because of her womanly appearance by men on the street. She is even sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend Leap, who coerces her with bus fare; it is implied that Inez’s boyfriends have acted inappropriately in the past. In these moments, Ruby wishes she were invisible. Her goal is to rise out of poverty by earning a scholarship to Cheyney University, with the novel revealing how much she is willing to sacrifice in order to achieve this. Her first sacrifice is kissing Leap for bus fare, at his request, and her second sacrifice is giving up her daughter Grace (Wilhelmina) for adoption in order to earn a We Rise scholarship. The third and final sacrifice is giving up her relationship with Shimmy, the father of Grace. Having made these sacrifices, Ruby ends the novel as an optometrist. Despite achieving her goal, she is framed as unhappy.

Ruby grows throughout the novel, especially during her stay at a maternity home for unwed mothers, the House of Magdalene.