I can genuinely say that I enjoyed this book including all of its 1069 pages. I consider that the struggle and the challenge to finish was what made it remarkably rewarding. I loved it, and although I do admit that there were a couple of breaking points where I became so desperate for an ending, I understand why Ayn Rand used ranting and repetition as her way to get her point across to the public.
Ayn Rand’s resentment about communism shines in about 80% of the last portion of the book. Dagny’s arrival and later obvious departure of Galt Gauch was the enlightening portion for me. Dagny knew what she was leaving; she was leaving a land and people whose ideals were in benefit to those of those who earned it. In Galt’s mind, the outside world was living the illusion that they could live their lives without working, without using their mind, and attempting to take control over the geniuses to force them into working for benefit. In Galt’s mind, all of those living Galt Gauch have had the burden of holding the Earth like the god Atlas when they never had to in the first place. Once they realized that they did had done everything to protect the Earth and yet they were still repressed and blamed by society, they quit. As a favor to themselves. As we approached the ending, one can clearly tell that Dagny decided to stay on Earth because she wanted to do make sure she had done everything she could to maintain the Taggart Transcontinental legacy. I respect that. I respect the fact she decided to be the last industrialist so she could see the malice and pure evil that controlled the world.
As for the John Galt’s speech? It was a praise to the mind. It was the code by which all of the industrialist stood by because all of them have worked and deserved the gratitude of the people and received none in return. If there was a word that summed up Galt it would be earned. People in the outside world are selfish and lazy. The communism that the politicians tried to control was useless because they didn’t even know what to do!! How can they rule the country when they have none of the skills or the intelligence to do so!! All they think have is the power to demand something they do not deserve in the first place. Slowly. The politicians murdered the spirit of the man by trying to control it like a puppet. So of course, when the speech ended, the politicians first reaction was to ignore it. YOU CAN’T DO THAT. That, is ignorance in it’s brightest. Man’s selfishness was what brought the whole world down in the book, but selfishness for what? I don’t understand what Jim and Mr. Thompson were aiming to do. They said they wanted to “save the world” but in reality they were stubborn men who wanted to keep their “powerful” jobs when their jobs held no power in the first place. They couldn’t do anything and they wouldn’t give up anything. They never sacrificed themselves for the benefit of society. NO, that concept is ridiculous to them. Then how did they expect others, such as Galt and Dagny, to take the responsibility of the failure of the country when it wasn’t their poor judgement that ruined it in the first place. In this book no one wanted to take responsibility, no one wanted to take action. They wanted to wait for SOMEONE else to do it. The reason why Jim and Philip were so miserable was because they never worked for anything in their life so nothing in their life was rewarding. All the material products they had was because of someone else (Dagny was responsible for Jim and Hank of Philip).
The dollar sign, the symbol of Galt Gauch/Atlantis, was an emblem of hope to the industrialist. Hope that once all the malice and destruction has reached to the point where there is nothing to destroy. Once the politicians have finally given up. Then there will finally be a reason to come back. All the industrialists extreme decision of leaving the world to die was necessary in order for the public to learn to appreciate what they lost.
My dear Ayn Rand, thank you for the most stressful two weeks of my life. Goodbye.
The Final Stride
I honestly thought that Atlas Shrugged was my perpetual doom…my prolonged, inevitable death. The demise of a student, dare I say an academic. But as i frantically annotated the remaining passages of the novel, Sia’s “I’m Alive” played in my head like Halley’s Fifth Concerto. I did it. I read Atlas Shrugged. Yes, the girl who hates the tediousness of reading and annotating finished all 1,069 pages.
Over the past few Sundays, I have given my opinion of this book quite thoroughly. Admiring, judging, and questioning, I have put a lot of thought into Rand’s work – her ideas, her characters, her words. I thought I would use my last blog post to seize the opportunity to squeeze in all thoughts I have left – even if they are random and unconventional. So here lie the inner workings of Dani’s mind – complex but yet so simple. I hope you enjoy my final verdicts on Atlas Shrugged:
Holding the tattered, post it infested, ink-blocked pages of Atlas Shrugged, a man on my plane this weekend jumped at me before exiting the terminal. “How’s the book so far? It’s my favorite.” Lying between my teeth just to appease him I said politely, “good”. He was a representative from the state legislature. Ironic, I know, now, I can’t help but laugh at this.
Throughout these past three months I have held my book like the bible, but not because I cherished the words inside as some holy and virtuous savior, but rather because it would identify me as an English student for the first quarter. My livelihood in this class depended on the blog posts, which ultimately came from the insight of my annotations. But as this assignment culminates to an end, I realize that each day the words of this book did resonate with me, for the same reason why some people remember scripture passages. By no means am I saying this book was a lifechanging vitality to my enlightenment as a seventeen year old, but I did widen my perspectives on the most basic of concepts. The bible and Atlas cover many of the same type of subjects – human virtue, human error, the error of existence, the spirit of evil, and rebirth.
I would like to discuss the meaning of the title. The saying goes “don’t judge a book by its cover”, yet everyone’s first judgement is on sight of the cover. The image of a globe on Atlas’s shoulders intrigued me. Once I started reading, I wondered what the correlation between a railroad company and a Greek myth could be. After reading the book, i have come to my full analysis. To give some background: in Greek mythology, Atlas is a titan who wages war on the olympians and ultimately loses. As a punishment for undermining his authority, Zeus forces Atlas to hold heaven on his shoulders. If this mythology holds true in the book, then why is Atlas holding the entire Earth: is the entire Earth heaven?
Here holds a very important message:
“If 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?” – Francisco d’Anconia
“To Shrug!” – Hank Rearden
Very simply, the doers – the industrialists, the engineers, the professors, and the masters of the arts – of the world embody Atlas. Because of their morality, the hard workers, the capitalists of society are indebted with the responsibility of the world around them – and for a while they accept it. Spawning out of her objectivism philosophy, Rand portrays these characters as constantly abused by the self-proclaimed “needy”, the “needless” must give in to government directs and help looting. Eventually, each capitalist reach their tipping point, maximum capacity. Galt’s Gulch is their escape, their way off going on strike, saying “no more”. This is where the word ‘shrugged’ comes into play. The heroes do not fight ferociously, causing world war III, instead they shrug, an action almost of indifference.
As a sidenote, there are also some inconsistencies I would like to point out – where is the president of the United States? The Economic Bureaus seems to be the most powerful entity in the nation. I understand the absence of checks and balances because Rand is emphasizing the contorted formulation of America, yet the only two branches are the judicial and legislative. Bureaucracies are appointed by the executive branch, yet there seems to be an absence of this extremity of the government.
As I read the last line of the book, I felt a rush of nostalgia, remorse, and happiness. It was like the feeling Dagny and Hank felt when they entered their own utopia. As quarter one ends, I must say that this is an end of an era.
THE END
It has finally come to an end and I am unimpressed by the ending. Rand only adds explicit text explaining her ideals of pure capitalism and radicalizes socialist viewpoints so that they are dastardly and wicked with no wiggle room for any doubt. I mean 50 some odd pages dedicated to her ideals expressed through Galt felt excessive after the other hundred examples throughout the novel that lack any sort of subtlety. The characters also remain as unrelatable as ever. We all cannot be the pure embodiment of capitalism without empathy and compassion according to Rand. Since giving is never allowed. Everything must be earned. It gets repetitive and old because this is her Utopia and by the end it just grates on my nerves. The characters can come off as cold and indifferent towards others when in our reality empathy would be involved. It felt disturbing and perverted to the world we live in today. Also, not only are Rand’s characters unrealistic but so are her ideals. We all are not able to be the best in our respective fields and would be lagging in the “earning” community. Many people would also be compelled to share their life’s cumulation of work whether it be for the benefit for others or for one’s own ego boost. We are human and our emotions drive us to do things outside the bounds that limit Rand’s stark world. Her story has success based on an equation like system without any allowance for variables of humanity. The ending was also predictable. Something had to go wrong. I mean really Dagny. You led the looters straight to Galt! And of course he stayed strong and proved his strength unequal to the tyranny of socialism. With this pure strength we was able to sway Mr. Thompson to lead the country economically but of course he refused. Why should he take the power to try and make the country a better place? It just doesn’t fit in his (Rand’s) freaking ideals. Overall, I am left unenthused towards the ending and yes Rand I got the message really loud and really clear about what you think of this world and I do not agree even after she tried to shove it down my throat.
AP Literature Period 3 
Atlas Shrugged
Pg. 501 to 1069
I can genuinely say that I enjoyed this book including all of its 1069 pages. I consider that the struggle and the challenge to finish was what made it remarkably rewarding. I loved it, and although I do admit that there were a couple of breaking points where I became so desperate for an ending, I understand why Ayn Rand used ranting and repetition as her way to get her point across to the public.
Ayn Rand’s resentment about communism shines in about 80% of the last portion of the book. Dagny’s arrival and later obvious departure of Galt Gauch was the enlightening portion for me. Dagny knew what she was leaving; she was leaving a land and people whose ideals were in benefit to those of those who earned it. In Galt’s mind, the outside world was living the illusion that they could live their lives without working, without using their mind, and attempting to take control over the geniuses to force them into working for benefit. In Galt’s mind, all of those living Galt Gauch have had the burden of holding the Earth like the god Atlas when they never had to in the first place. Once they realized that they did had done everything to protect the Earth and yet they were still repressed and blamed by society, they quit. As a favor to themselves. As we approached the ending, one can clearly tell that Dagny decided to stay on Earth because she wanted to do make sure she had done everything she could to maintain the Taggart Transcontinental legacy. I respect that. I respect the fact she decided to be the last industrialist so she could see the malice and pure evil that controlled the world.
As for the John Galt’s speech? It was a praise to the mind. It was the code by which all of the industrialist stood by because all of them have worked and deserved the gratitude of the people and received none in return. If there was a word that summed up Galt it would be earned. People in the outside world are selfish and lazy. The communism that the politicians tried to control was useless because they didn’t even know what to do!! How can they rule the country when they have none of the skills or the intelligence to do so!! All they think have is the power to demand something they do not deserve in the first place. Slowly. The politicians murdered the spirit of the man by trying to control it like a puppet. So of course, when the speech ended, the politicians first reaction was to ignore it. YOU CAN’T DO THAT. That, is ignorance in it’s brightest. Man’s selfishness was what brought the whole world down in the book, but selfishness for what? I don’t understand what Jim and Mr. Thompson were aiming to do. They said they wanted to “save the world” but in reality they were stubborn men who wanted to keep their “powerful” jobs when their jobs held no power in the first place. They couldn’t do anything and they wouldn’t give up anything. They never sacrificed themselves for the benefit of society. NO, that concept is ridiculous to them. Then how did they expect others, such as Galt and Dagny, to take the responsibility of the failure of the country when it wasn’t their poor judgement that ruined it in the first place. In this book no one wanted to take responsibility, no one wanted to take action. They wanted to wait for SOMEONE else to do it. The reason why Jim and Philip were so miserable was because they never worked for anything in their life so nothing in their life was rewarding. All the material products they had was because of someone else (Dagny was responsible for Jim and Hank of Philip).
The dollar sign, the symbol of Galt Gauch/Atlantis, was an emblem of hope to the industrialist. Hope that once all the malice and destruction has reached to the point where there is nothing to destroy. Once the politicians have finally given up. Then there will finally be a reason to come back. All the industrialists extreme decision of leaving the world to die was necessary in order for the public to learn to appreciate what they lost.
My dear Ayn Rand, thank you for the most stressful two weeks of my life. Goodbye.
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The Final Stride
I honestly thought that Atlas Shrugged was my perpetual doom…my prolonged, inevitable death. The demise of a student, dare I say an academic. But as i frantically annotated the remaining passages of the novel, Sia’s “I’m Alive” played in my head like Halley’s Fifth Concerto. I did it. I read Atlas Shrugged. Yes, the girl who hates the tediousness of reading and annotating finished all 1,069 pages.
Over the past few Sundays, I have given my opinion of this book quite thoroughly. Admiring, judging, and questioning, I have put a lot of thought into Rand’s work – her ideas, her characters, her words. I thought I would use my last blog post to seize the opportunity to squeeze in all thoughts I have left – even if they are random and unconventional. So here lie the inner workings of Dani’s mind – complex but yet so simple. I hope you enjoy my final verdicts on Atlas Shrugged:
Holding the tattered, post it infested, ink-blocked pages of Atlas Shrugged, a man on my plane this weekend jumped at me before exiting the terminal. “How’s the book so far? It’s my favorite.” Lying between my teeth just to appease him I said politely, “good”. He was a representative from the state legislature. Ironic, I know, now, I can’t help but laugh at this.
Throughout these past three months I have held my book like the bible, but not because I cherished the words inside as some holy and virtuous savior, but rather because it would identify me as an English student for the first quarter. My livelihood in this class depended on the blog posts, which ultimately came from the insight of my annotations. But as this assignment culminates to an end, I realize that each day the words of this book did resonate with me, for the same reason why some people remember scripture passages. By no means am I saying this book was a lifechanging vitality to my enlightenment as a seventeen year old, but I did widen my perspectives on the most basic of concepts. The bible and Atlas cover many of the same type of subjects – human virtue, human error, the error of existence, the spirit of evil, and rebirth.
I would like to discuss the meaning of the title. The saying goes “don’t judge a book by its cover”, yet everyone’s first judgement is on sight of the cover. The image of a globe on Atlas’s shoulders intrigued me. Once I started reading, I wondered what the correlation between a railroad company and a Greek myth could be. After reading the book, i have come to my full analysis. To give some background: in Greek mythology, Atlas is a titan who wages war on the olympians and ultimately loses. As a punishment for undermining his authority, Zeus forces Atlas to hold heaven on his shoulders. If this mythology holds true in the book, then why is Atlas holding the entire Earth: is the entire Earth heaven?
Here holds a very important message:
“If 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?” – Francisco d’Anconia
“To Shrug!” – Hank Rearden
Very simply, the doers – the industrialists, the engineers, the professors, and the masters of the arts – of the world embody Atlas. Because of their morality, the hard workers, the capitalists of society are indebted with the responsibility of the world around them – and for a while they accept it. Spawning out of her objectivism philosophy, Rand portrays these characters as constantly abused by the self-proclaimed “needy”, the “needless” must give in to government directs and help looting. Eventually, each capitalist reach their tipping point, maximum capacity. Galt’s Gulch is their escape, their way off going on strike, saying “no more”. This is where the word ‘shrugged’ comes into play. The heroes do not fight ferociously, causing world war III, instead they shrug, an action almost of indifference.
As a sidenote, there are also some inconsistencies I would like to point out – where is the president of the United States? The Economic Bureaus seems to be the most powerful entity in the nation. I understand the absence of checks and balances because Rand is emphasizing the contorted formulation of America, yet the only two branches are the judicial and legislative. Bureaucracies are appointed by the executive branch, yet there seems to be an absence of this extremity of the government.
As I read the last line of the book, I felt a rush of nostalgia, remorse, and happiness. It was like the feeling Dagny and Hank felt when they entered their own utopia. As quarter one ends, I must say that this is an end of an era.
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THE END
It has finally come to an end and I am unimpressed by the ending. Rand only adds explicit text explaining her ideals of pure capitalism and radicalizes socialist viewpoints so that they are dastardly and wicked with no wiggle room for any doubt. I mean 50 some odd pages dedicated to her ideals expressed through Galt felt excessive after the other hundred examples throughout the novel that lack any sort of subtlety. The characters also remain as unrelatable as ever. We all cannot be the pure embodiment of capitalism without empathy and compassion according to Rand. Since giving is never allowed. Everything must be earned. It gets repetitive and old because this is her Utopia and by the end it just grates on my nerves. The characters can come off as cold and indifferent towards others when in our reality empathy would be involved. It felt disturbing and perverted to the world we live in today. Also, not only are Rand’s characters unrealistic but so are her ideals. We all are not able to be the best in our respective fields and would be lagging in the “earning” community. Many people would also be compelled to share their life’s cumulation of work whether it be for the benefit for others or for one’s own ego boost. We are human and our emotions drive us to do things outside the bounds that limit Rand’s stark world. Her story has success based on an equation like system without any allowance for variables of humanity. The ending was also predictable. Something had to go wrong. I mean really Dagny. You led the looters straight to Galt! And of course he stayed strong and proved his strength unequal to the tyranny of socialism. With this pure strength we was able to sway Mr. Thompson to lead the country economically but of course he refused. Why should he take the power to try and make the country a better place? It just doesn’t fit in his (Rand’s) freaking ideals. Overall, I am left unenthused towards the ending and yes Rand I got the message really loud and really clear about what you think of this world and I do not agree even after she tried to shove it down my throat.
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