Atlas Shrugged

“The clouds and the shafts of skyscrapers against them were turning brown, like an old painting in oil, the color fading from an old masterpiece. Long streaks of grime ran from under the pinnacles down the slender, soot-eaten walls. High on the side of a tower there was a crack in the shape of a motionless lightning, the length of ten stories. A jagged object cut the sky above the roofs; it was half a spire, still holding the glow of the sunset; the gold leaf had long since peeled off the other half. The glow was red and still, like the reflection of a fire: not an active fire but a dying one which it is too late to stop.”

Rand paints a vivid image of the cityscape that clearly conveys an atmosphere of decaying grandeur and encroaching entropy. Once-grand structures are falling into ruin, mirroring the economy’s downward spiral into socialism, unproductivity, and stagnation. The simile compares the city to a fading “masterpiece,” creating a melancholic and nostalgic mood, suggesting that circumstances are worse for the characters in the present time than they were for prior generations. The closing simile compares the light to a “dying” fire, foreshadowing the upcoming extinguishing of the fires of industry and the lights of New York.

“Her leg, sculpted by the tight sheen of the stocking, it’s long line running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a high-heeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty train car and oddly incongruous with the rest of her. […] Her face was made of angular planes, the shape of her mouth clear-cut, a sensual mouth held closed with inflexible precision. She kept her hands in her coat pockets, her posture taut as if she resented immobility, and unfeminine, as if she were unconscious of her own body and that it was a woman’s body.”

This first description of Dagny conveys the meaningful elements of her character through her physical appearance. Her natural feminine characteristics are contrasted with the masculinity of her comportment, showing that she combines voluntary, indulgent sensuality with objectivist virtues of strength and power, choosing to work within an industry that is traditionally masculine.

“Francisco smiled; it was a smile of radiant mockery. Watching them, Dagny thought suddenly of the difference between Francisco and her brother Jim. Both of them smiled derisively. But Francisco seemed to laugh at things because he saw something much greater. Jim laughed as if he wanted to let nothing remain great.”

In this quote, Francisco and Jim are presented as foils. Francisco is representative of a virtuous man under the moral system of objectivism; he finds joy in hope for improvement and in his own superiority. Jim is the exact opposite in that he smiles in order to try and tear down that which exists. This foreshadows Jim’s eventual revelation that his life is dedicated to destruction and evil.

“It was Halley’s new Concerto, recently written, the Fourth.

They sat in silence, listening to the statement of rebellion—the anthem of the triumph of the great victims who would refuse to accept pain.”

The music of Richard Halley in the novel represents the culmination of a lifetime of work and skill—the valuable outcome of virtuous productivity in capitalist terms. The music’s qualities evoke strong emotional responses and appreciation in the characters who are themselves virtuous enough according to The Objectivist Perspective of Morality to appreciate it.

“‘Plot is a primitive vulgarity in literature’ […]

‘Quite so. Just as logic is a primitive vulgarity in philosophy.’

‘Just as melody is a primitive vulgarity in music.’”

These three phrases are repetitive in structure, vocabulary, and sentiment. Each supposed expert makes a simple statement that discredits one of the fundamental elements of their field as “primitive vulgarity.” The irony of this, reinforced and emphasized by the repetition, is deliberately provocative and encourages the reader to sympathize with the characters who disagree with these views and to apply such skepticism to other statements made by academics both within the book and without. These statements satirize the discourse of Rand’s real-world contemporaries in left-wing academia, whose views often opposed her own.

“She could not believe that the young boy laughing in her face was Ellis Wyatt. The tense, scornful face she remembered, now had the purity, the eagerness, the joyous benevolence of a child in the kind of world for which he had been intended.”

This passage shows the idealization of youth as a state in which raw potential has yet to be sullied or degraded by contact with an impure world of looters. Wyatt is enlivened and made jubilant by Dagny’s victory. His happiness here is in sharp contrast to his first appearance as a grim and menacing opponent to the looter’s machinations.

“The factory was rotten. Everybody is rotten. I’m supposed to beg somebody’s pardon, but I won’t. I don’t give a damn. People get fits trying to keep up the show, when it’s all rot, black rot, the automobiles, the buildings and the souls, it doesn’t make any difference, one way or another.”

The use of listing and the repetition of “rot” and “rotten” evokes a visceral sense of disgust such as Dagny herself feels listening to the speaker. The exaggerated tone of obstinate self-pity speaks to the theme of The Weaponization of Victimhood that the immoral looters exhibit rather than accept their own failures. The rot afflicting the motor company is an allegory for socialism that Rand felt was despoiling American society.

“We put into practice that noble historical precept: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. […] it was based on a principle of selflessness. It required men to be motivated, not by personal gain, but by love for their brothers.”

This passage neatly summarizes a system that is in direct opposition to that of objectivism, a satirical caricature of the principles espoused by Marxists and altruists. There is irony in this being dubbed “noble,” as it is the direct antithesis of the concept of nobility as presented in Atlas Shrugged, which celebrates principles of egotism and self-interest.

“Dagny heard a cold implacable voice saying somewhere within her: Remember it—remember it well—it is not often that one can see pure evil—look at it—remember—and some day you’ll find the words to name its essence… she heard it through the screaming of other voices that cried in helpless violence: it’s nothing—I’ve heard it before—I’m hearing it everywhere—it’s nothing but the same old tripe—why can’t I stand it?—I can’t stand it—I can’t stand it!”

The truncated, incomplete phrases here show the depth of Dagny’s perturbation and emotional response to the description of the company’s policies. The rhetorical questions, the use of punctuation and repetition to break up the flow of the phrases, the fact that Dagny is addressing herself directly, and the conflict between the voices within her all speak to the turmoil and suffering that she undergoes. This all functions to evoke a similar sense of sympathetic revulsion in the reader.

“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns—or dollars. Take your choice—there is no other—and your time is running out.”

In his extended speech on the importance of money, Francisco functions as Rand’s mouthpiece, espousing her philosophy of objectivism and the arguments in its favor. Francisco’s monologues make liberal use of persuasive rhetorical techniques to make the arguments more convincing to his audience. For instance, the use of tripling in “blood, whips and guns” makes the phrase more striking and memorable, as does its evocative and violent imagery. The ironic flipping of the traditional axiom “money is the root of all evil” underlines the radical shift in perspective proposed by objectivism. The dichotomy of two contrasting arguments obscures any potential middle ground or alternative, making the preferred option seem all the more desirable. His use of the direct second-person pronoun gives the argument force and encourages the reader to apply Francisco’s words to their own life and mindset.

“‘[I]f you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?’

‘I…don’t know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?’

‘To shrug.’”

This quote contains the titular metaphor of the novel: that of the mythological Greek Titan, Atlas, shrugging to dislodge his burden of the heavens. This reference to classical mythology along with the striking imagery and pathos-laden description of Atlas’s state creates a visual metaphor for the position of the productive characters beset by looters. Francisco takes on a didactic role here as he has already undertaken the figurative shrug himself by joining Galt’s strike. The contrast between his simple, self-assured answer—an impactful, two monosyllable response—to the proposed question and Rearden’s helpless uncertainty—conveyed through the use of ellipses and repetition in the questions—shows the gulf separating their respective mindsets. This foreshadows the journey that Rearden is to make through the remainder of the narrative.

“‘That is the flaw in your policy, gentlemen,’ said Rearden gravely, ‘and I will not help you out of it. If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition—which you cannot force—that makes you possible […] If you believe you have the right to force me—use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action.’”

This passage encapsulates an important step in Rearden’s journey toward self-liberation from the power of the looters and an important contribution to the theme of The Weaponization of Victimhood. It also speaks to the principles of nonviolence that are a key component of objectivism by contrasting Rearden’s passive resistance to the implied violence of his opponents’ methods.

“Genius is a superstition […] There’s no such thing as the intellect. A man’s brain is a social product. A sum of influence that he’s picked up from those around him. Nobody invents anything, he merely reflects what’s floating in the social atmosphere. A genius is an intellectual scavenger and a greedy hoarder of the ideas which rightly belong to society, from which he stole them. All thought is theft. If we do away with private fortunes, we’ll have a fairer distribution of wealth. If we do away with the genius, we’ll have a fairer distribution of ideas.”

This quote is intentionally ironic; after hundreds of pages dedicated to suggesting that genius truly does exist through the characters of Dagny, Rearden, and their kind, to be presented with an outright denial of their existence is portrayed as laughable. Ferris’s speech is a parody of the kind made by Rand’s ideological opposites in the real world, with the reference to the distribution of wealth a clear jab at the communists of the USSR.

“Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive.”

Robin Hood is a quasi-historical figure known for stealing from the rich to feed the poor. Danneskjold deplores what he believes the character represents: the philosophy of the looters, even though that is just one of the interpretations of the enduring legend. Danneskjold is himself much like Robin Hood, who in fact stole back wealth that was taxed from the workers who produced it.

“‘You may list me as your exclusive property, use me as a special item of pull, and trade me all over Washington. But I don’t know what good that will do you, because I’m not going to play the game, I’m not going to trade favors, I’m simply going to start breaking your laws right now—and you can arrest me when you feel that you can afford to.’

‘I believe that you have an old fashioned idea about law, Miss Taggart. Why speak of rigid, unbreakable laws? our modern laws are elastic and open to interpretation according to…circumstances.’

‘Then start being elastic right now, because I’m not and neither are railroad catastrophes.’”

Here, Dagny acknowledges the dehumanization that she suffers at the hands of the looters: becoming little more than an object or token to be traded in a game of which she wants no part. By explicitly allowing this violation, she regains her agency and removes the looters’ power over her, instead asserting her own power that stems from her value in capitalist terms. By standing firm and setting herself apart from the Washington men, she embodies the ideal of Radical Individualism and Idolization of the Lone Genius Archetype. She aligns herself with her railroad and refuses to bend to the level of her interlocutor; showing the difference in their respective moralities and power through the juxtaposition of “elastic” and “rigid.”

“This was the world as she had expected to see it at sixteen—and now she had reached it—and it seemed so simple, so unastonishing, that the thing she felt was like a blessing pronounced upon the universe by means of three words: But of course.

She was looking up into the face of a man who knelt by her side, and she knew that in all the years behind her, this was what she would have given her life to see: a face that bore no marks of pain or fear or guilt.”

Galt functions as an aspirational ideal for any budding objectivist. As is typical in the novel, his outward appearance is perfectly reflective of his moral virtuousness and internal character. Dagny’s instinctive reaction to him is indicative of the instant, unbreakable bond between them.

“Jim’s face looked like a crumpled piece of paper, though its soft puffed flesh had acquired no additional lines.”

Atlas Shrugged follows a convention of morality tales: presenting a character’s outward appearance as a reflection of their inner character and moral worth. In Jim’s case, the unflattering simile in this passage illustrates his weakness of character and moral bankruptcy. “Crumpled” paper is to be worthless and discarded, and the phrase “soft puffed flesh” calls to mind a bloated, rotted corpse. The imagery suggests that he is unequal to the trials and tribulations that he’s brought upon himself and lacking the strength of character seen in the protagonists or the men of Galt’s Gulch.

“Then the girl screamed—and the scream went beating against the blank walls of the street as in a chamber of torture, an animal scream of terror.”

Cheryl’s moment of realization here mirrors and foreshadows Jim’s own revelation as to the nature of his own evil in the novel’s penultimate chapter. Whereas Jim is confronted by his own evil, Cheryl is struck all at once by the evil of the society in which she lives. The repetition of “scream” communicates the visceral emotional response evoked by her newfound knowledge, as the violent vocabulary of the torture chamber metaphor conveys the depth of her suffering. She is isolated by the “blank” walls that seem to trap her and referred to as a girl, likened to an “animal,” showing her helplessness. Despite the objectivist derision of The Weaponization of Victimhood, Cheryl is presented as a victim of the looters’ world and of Jim’s evil. She is a sympathetic figure who is too close to Rand’s ideal to live complacently in the world of the novel but not productive enough (in capitalist terms) to merit saving by anti-altruistic objectivists of Galt’s Gulch.

“The calendar was run by a mechanism locked in a room behind the screen, unrolling the same film year after year, projecting the dates in steady rotation, in changeless rhythm, never moving but on the stroke of midnight. The speed of Dagny’s turn gave her time to see a phenomenon as unexpected as if a planet had reversed its orbit in the sky: she saw the words ‘September 2’ moving upwards and vanishing past the edge of the screen.

Then written across the enormous page, stopping time, as a last message to the world and to the world’s motor which was New York, she saw the lines of sharp, intransigent handwriting:

Brother, you asked for it!

Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d’Anconia.”

Francisco’s final farewell message marks the beginning of the end of the looters’ society, quite literally, since he succeeded in stopping the clock. Their days are no longer numbered; instead, they have reached the final, cataclysmic end game. The cheeky irreverence of the message itself, and Francisco’s clear pride in spelling out his name in its entirety, imbues this event with a positive, joyful atmosphere.

“The boy’s head dropped and Rearden kissed his forehead; it was like a father’s recognition granted to a son’s battle.”

This moment is one of deep pathos and tragedy, enhanced by the comparison of their bond to a familial relationship. Tony’s youth is emphasized, and he is presented as a victim of the society that failed him and curbed his potential. Rearden acknowledges Tony’s success in fighting the indoctrination of the looters, even though he failed to meet the most fundamental objectivist value of ensuring his own survival.

“He felt a peculiar cleanliness. It was made of pride and of love for this earth, this earth which was his, not theirs. It was the feeling which had moved him through his life, the feeling which some among men know in their youth, then betray, but which he had never betrayed and had carried within him as a battered, attacked, unidentified, but living motor—the feeling which he could now experience in its full, uncontested purity: the sense of his own superlative value and the superlative value of his life. It was the final certainty that his life was his, to be lived with no bondage to evil, and that that bondage had never been necessary. It was the radiant serenity of knowing that he was free of fear, of pain, of guilt.”

This passage lays out Rearden’s moment of revelation, the culmination of his character development and his journey toward acceptance of Galt’s strike and the full objectivist philosophy. The excessive, flowery descriptions of Rearden’s bliss at internalizing objectivism convey catharsis after the prolonged struggle and suffering that the character has endured and a persuasive technique to promote objectivism to the reader.

“The glare of steel being poured from a furnace shot to the sky beyond the window. A red glow went sweeping slowly over the walls of the office, over the empty desk, over Rearden’s face, as if in salute and farewell.”

Light is used throughout the novel to create atmosphere and to symbolize important developments in character and plot. Here, the glow of the furnace mimics a sunset to mark the end of Rearden’s character arc. The empty desk marks the severing of Rearden’s connection to his furnaces, as does the symbolic farewell of the furnace’s light.

“He was suddenly seeing the motive that had directed all the actions of his life. It was not his incommunicable soul or his love for others or his social duty or any of the fraudulent sounds by which he maintained his self-esteem: it was the lust to destroy whatever was living, for the sake of whatever was not. […] Now he knew that he had wanted Galt’s destruction at the price of his own destruction to follow, he knew that he had never wanted to survive, he knew that it was Galt’s greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy.”

This passage explicitly lays out the entirety of Jim’s character motivations by revealing to him and to the reader his fundamental goals and principles. Jim represents the whole creed of looters, and his values directly juxtapose those of Galt.