Dust

Charlotte is the deuteragonist, or secondary protagonist, of Dust and the primary narrator of the Silo 1 sections of the book. She is the younger sister of Donald, the only woman from Silo 1 (and Earth’s past) to survive to the novel’s end, and a skilled pilot and engineer who uses drones to secretly explore the landscape outside.

A former military member, Charlotte is resilient and intelligent but insecure, particularly about her body, which has fallen out of shape due to prolonged cryofreeze, and her safety. Charlotte is very aware of her second-class status as a woman, mistrusting most male characters, such as Darcy, and believing them capable of harming or raping her.

Over the course of the book, Charlotte becomes more secure in her abilities; she forms a separate identity from her past and from her brother, becoming independent through her investigations of the silo system and her attempts to free Donald from imprisonment. Charlotte’s decision to survive while Donald, Darcy, and all of Silo 1 die behind her shows her character arc—at the book’s opening, she would have been too self-doubting to venture out into the outside on her own. At the end of the novel, as the only person to have seen Earth before the silos, Charlotte is a link to the past, symbolizing humanity’s inescapable connection to its history.

Charlotte’s brother, Donald, is the secondary narrator of the Silo 1 sections. Donald is intellectual, cunning, and reckless. His health deteriorates during the novel due to the beneficial and harmful nanobots warring within his body, symbolizing him being torn between the ruin of the past and possibilities of the future. Donald’s proximity to death often defines his choices; in the end, he sacrifices himself as a final rebellion against the system of his own partial creation.

Donald is revealed to have been one of the primary architects of the silos; in Shift, the second book in the series, he is responsible for helping Anna Thurman incite rebellions in other silos. Donald values all human life surviving in the silos and fights against Senator Thurman’s plan to kill all but one group of people. Donald’s relatively flat character arc focuses primarily on his efforts to atone for his past mistakes: As redemption for his role in building the oppressive system, Donald dies while detonating the bomb that destroys Silo 1 and saves everyone else.

Juliette’s love interest, Lukas, is a somewhat flat character that primarily exists to counterbalance Juliette’s self-doubt. His supportive speeches often buoy her, and his emotional intelligence monitors the social situation in Silo 18 to let Juliette know about upcoming riots. Although they love and trust each other, Juliette and Lukas often ignore each other’s advice—a narrative technique that allows Howey to build tension and conflict. Howey wrings pathos out of Lukas’s tragic death and uses this character to contrast the inhumane behavior of Silo 1 and the greed of Silo 18 survivors. Lukas is wise, loving, and curious; his briefly mentioned love for the stars signifies his pursuit of the unknown regardless of the danger. After his death, Lukas lives on through Juliette, who names a constellation after him.

Seven-year-old Elise, a survivor from Silo 17, is the youngest narrator in Dust. She considers other Silo 17 children—Hannah, Rickson, Jimmy, and the twins—as her family, even though she is not biologically related to them. Elise is characterized by her pursuit of knowledge (shown through the book she carries everywhere) and her love of animals. Unlike the jaded adults around her, she sees value in Puppy despite the dog’s relative uselessness. Elise’s childish nature brings childhood back to characters like Shaw while encouraging those like Jimmy to mature.

She is trusting and gentle; while she hears others talk of violence and mistrust, she does not understand it and tries to see the best in people. Because of this, she is easily taken advantage of—most alarmingly, Rash sees her as a sexual object. Despite her kidnapping and Rash’s threat of sexual violence, however, she retains much of her innocence, demonstrating hope for the future.

Jimmy, the oldest survivor from Silo 17, acts younger than his age, as his isolation as a child stunted his emotional growth. Jimmy mistrusts everyone except Juliette and his fellow Silo 17 survivors. Fiercely loyal, Jimmy is willing to fight to protect those he loves, willing to harm others for Elise’s safety. Like Elise, Jimmy loves animals; his cat, Shadow, was his only companion for many years, and he still grieves Shadow in the present.

Jimmy becomes more self-confident during the course of the novel, developing into Elise’s guardian and growing into a viable leader for the new community, demonstrating that he has become an adult and let go of the crushing weight of Silo 17’s traumatic history.

Paul Thurman, the leader of Silo 1, is the primary antagonist in the series. When he was a US senator, Thurman became the mastermind behind the silo plan, activated after he instigated nuclear war. Thurman is power-hungry, ruthless, vindictive, and unapologetic about committing genocide. Thurman is capable of great personal violence as well—he kicks and beats Donald nearly to death.

Thurman’s repressive regime commands respect and obedience; he clings to power all the harder after his daughter, Anna, rebelled against him and disrupted part of his ability to destroy other silos remotely. His choices reveal his fanatical attachment to his eugenicist ideology—that only the fittest silo should be allowed to repopulate the Earth. Thurman is portrayed as a rational and charismatic true believer, completely at ease with his decision to kill most humans.

Thurman’s villainy is primarily used to allow Donald a measure of redemption; unlike Donald, Thurman never questions any part of the silo program. While Donald wants to save all possible silos, Thurmas views individual lives as expendable. As a former senator, he also represents the harmful nature of American exceptionalism, which in Howey’s world leads to apocalyptic destruction.