characters
All the characters in Beauty Will Save the World are archetypes of society, and therefore nameless in the story other than being referred to as their archetype. They are defined by what they say and do and their relationship with the other characters. Although this story features seventeen distinct characters, the list of potential archetypes in a society is endless, and no one person represents just one at any given time or in any situation.
"I am citizen. I am a parent. I am a child. I am a nurse. I am a teacher. I am a youth. I am a grandfather. I am an artist. I am a politician. I am a volunteer. I am a lawyer. I am a worker. I am a journalist. I am a doctor. I am a veteran. I am a minister. I am a truck driver. I am an engineer. I am a patient. I am a business owner. I am a server. I am a social worker. I am your neighbour. I am your loved one."
"It's those very things which makes life worth living and which brings thanksgiving that Control knows are most dangerous to itself, and it shows the Emperor has no clothes, and then anything goes. It's those things that might give citizens wings, and might remind them of a higher purpose to life than safety brings..."
- Beauty Will Save the World
"Mankind... can live without science, without bread, and it only cannot live without beauty, for then there would be nothing at all to do in the world! The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here. Science itself would not stand for a minute without beauty.”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky