You were asked to have three points for discussion on Atlas Shrugged. We only managed to scratch the surface during our limited class time. Please share one of your points and opinion on that point, and then feel free to respond to as many posts as you want, but you must respond to at least two of your peers.
DIRECTIONS:
You were asked to have three points for discussion on Atlas Shrugged. We only managed to scratch the surface during our limited class time. Please share one of your points and opinion on that point, and then feel free to respond to as many posts as you want, but you must respond to at least two of your peers.
38 Comments
Nicole Rogers
9/1/2015 03:54:03 am
One major point I wanted to discuss was how Ayn Rand wrote almost a trilogy between Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. Anthem just scratched the surface of her philosophy and was easy to read being extremely simple but still having her main philosophy as the main theme. The Fountainhead simplified her philosophy having characters on sides evil and good, not a mixture of the two. Someone will argue that there were characters that flipped back and forth. That is true, but they were never in between they either completely flipped to good or completely flipped to bad. This showed us easily what Rand's thoughts were. Then there is Atlas Shrugged. This went even more in depth of her philosophies and views on life with exaggerations of the "evil" side like with the Directive and Project-X. At the same time that she exaggerated it to make it easy to see what she thought, the characters were much more complex and less black and white. The characters were more like actual humans. I do not know anyone in the real world that is all good or all evil and this was shown in Atlas. Characters like Dr. Stadler (the straddler) could be described as wanted to be good or deep down, genuinely good. They just made evil decisions. This is more like what we see in life, good people making bad decisions. Ayn Rand obviously used a much higher complexity with Atlas. To recap, Rand went from overly simplistic with Anthem then got a little more complex with The Fountainhead and then almost as complex as the real world with Atlas Shrugged. Imagine if we had only read Atlas. It would be ridiculously hard to read if you had not gotten the depth of understanding given with the Fountainhead. So it is like a trilogy of Rand's philosophy that has boosted in complexity level with each book.
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Mrs. H
9/1/2015 04:42:24 am
Way to go Nicole for being the guinea pig! A fair assessment of Rand's work, but I'll say no more until we hear more from the rest.
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Lauren Collins
9/6/2015 07:47:26 pm
I agree that the level of complexity developed higher as the books progressed. Although, I thought Anthem was an easy read, but the philosophy within it was still intricately detailed, (like using "we" and "they" instead of "I" and "me"). However, your point about good people making bad decisions is accurate within society and within Atlas. This is especially true through Dr. Stadler and through Cherryl's marriage, (even if the decision was unknowingly bad). Atlas was definitely Ayn Rand's masterpiece through her definition of what great minds deserve in life and what looters should not.
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Nora Skinner
9/2/2015 10:23:28 am
One point of discussion: Should Eddie have been invited into Galt's Gulch? We never find out what happens to Eddie at the end of the novel, but if Galt talked to him every day in the cafeteria, he must have known Eddie was an intelligent guy. So why not invite him in? Was it that Eddie did not have enough self confidence to stand up for he wanted? He was never brave enough to tell Dagny how he felt about her. I certainly don't think Galt or Dagny viewed him as a moocher, they knew he was a good guy, but I think the fact that he let the moochers so easily control him is what hindered his invitation. He had a lot of chances to stand up to moochers, but he just didn't take them.
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Kristen Rogers
9/2/2015 11:11:55 am
I agree with you. I think Galt knew Eddie was a good guy with the right way of thinking. But really, he was hardly any better than Dr Stadler. He would never stand up for what was right. Eddie agreed with Galt and Galt appreciated that Eddie felt the same, but Rand was trying to make a statement. If you will not stand up for what is right, you are not valuable to a decent society.
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Sarah Guiles
9/3/2015 02:48:09 am
I agree with you and Nicole, he didn't stand up to the looters ever--he was on the middle ground between the looters and the minds. The reason why he didn't get invited to The Valley was the same reason why Dagny couldn't stay in The Valley. She still had to be rid of her will to want to stay and fight for the loosing world. Eddie unfortunately did not have the will to deny the world.
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Destiny Mabe
9/3/2015 02:55:12 am
I feel he should not have been admitted into Galt's Gulch. I feel Eddie was to weak to be in Galt's Gulch. If you think about all the who are in the Valley, they are strong and they are rooted in their beliefs. Eddie was very malleable man who really didn't know what to believe in. I believe Eddie is a man in the middle ground. He wants to believe that "the Common good" is a great and noble thing, but then he also believes that the people like Galt and Dagny are wealthy because of their mind and he wants to believe that being greedy for the things you have earned is good, but that conflicts his beliefs of the common good.
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Elizabeth Byers
9/6/2015 07:03:22 am
I think that Eddie should have been let in to Galt's Gulch. Yes, he wasn't brilliant like Francisco or Dagny or Galt, but there were other individuals in the valley, such as the female author whose name we were not told, that weren't incredibly smart but still represented the type of people Ayn Rand believed to be the right type of people. Eddie was one of that type. Also, Eddie loved the railroad. How could he give up the thing that gave his life the most meaning when all that was waiting for him around the corner was a life wandering America as a hobo? He had no guarantee that he would survive. Would you give up your life's work to the chance that you would die in the night? I feel that Dagny should have hinted at what he could be a part of if he quit so that he would be more inclined to leave behind Taggart Transcontinental. Every other tycoon got the chance to hear about the valley and then accept or reject the proposal, but Eddie wasn't given that chance. Also, I think that remaining loyal to Taggart Transcontinental was Eddie's way of remaining loyal to Dagny. She was the railroad, and by abandoning the trains, Eddie was abandoning Dagny and he could never do that to the woman he loved and was his best childhood friend. I don't think that Eddie should have been kept out of the valley for wanting to remain loyal to his friend.
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Alyssa Hagerman
9/7/2015 03:18:30 pm
While I would love to say that Eddie belonged in the valley, he never did anything substantial enough to earn a place there. Like Jim, he had trouble making decisions without advisers, and he never really did come out with the opinions he had on matters of any importance. Also, anytime Dagny returned from any absence, she would find that there was a new man put in place that Eddie had to be bossed around by. He also never seemed to try to stop the changes at all, which only highlighted his weaknesses.
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Hannah
9/7/2015 05:50:30 pm
Thank you, I feel the same way. I think that eddie was in a way a mini dagny. He believed the same basic philosophy that john and francisco did. He remained pure by resisting the moochers, SO WHY DOES DAGNY NOT PICK HIS BUTT UP IN THE PLANE? he should be there with them, away from the looters and corruption of the world.
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Jennay Glidewell
9/7/2015 07:37:53 pm
I agree with you, that he didn't stand up for what he knew to be true enough, but I believe he should've been invited to Galt's Gulch. As the book went on I kept waiting for Galt to also take Eddie from Dagny the way he had taken all of the other men. Eddie knew that the looters were evil but he could never stand against them and he wasn't one of the great thinkers like all of the others, so he had to play by the looters rules. I think Galt went on his strike to not only help people like Dagny and Hank but also those like Eddie who were the ordinary men of the world that couldn't stand up for themselves but knew that reason was still the only way.
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Sarah Guiles
9/2/2015 10:58:57 am
One of my points that we did not touch on deeply revolves around the character of Jim. Jim Taggart is different than the other looters, he seems much more consumed by hate. This is shown when Galt is being tortured. He wanted Galt to die. Why is Jim like this, when the others haven't gone to that same extreme? Is it because Jim is so easily susceptible to being brainwashed be the philosophy on the looters, and that he had Francisco and Dagny as a younger boy to fuel his hatred before being introduced to Galt himself?
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Nicole Rogers
9/2/2015 11:25:54 am
I think it is partly comes from a brother-sister rivalry and sexist battle. Jim wants control and power and he wants to be the smartest in the business. Dagny is always challenging this. Dagny's intelligence and success drives Jim crazy partly because she is his sister but mainly because she is a woman and challenging his authority. Therefore Jim has been developing a hatred for his sister and her ways. So further he has developed a hatred for those that share these ways and challenge his unearned, unintelligent authority. I think this long built hatred makes him so brutal against Galt because he stands for everything Jim has always hated.
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Destiny Mabe
9/4/2015 03:37:13 pm
I believe Jim is the way he is because he had Dagny and Francisco as childhood friends. He was able to see the progression they were making, as well as, all the attention and the two as getting because of their mind. He wasn't getting as much attention and he felt deprived as a child. He felt he didn't fit in with Dagny and Francisco, so when he got older he wanted to fit in and go with the crowd. Since he wants to fit in, then he will listen to and believe everything that the rest of society does. Since he is s brainwashed, he would have an extreme hatred for anything that goes against what he believes. He hates those who are different he is afraid of them because they make him fell like he did in his childhood.
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Nora Skinner
9/6/2015 09:26:46 pm
I think Jim hates the producers because he has lived in the shadow of one his whole life. Many people foolishly believe that he runs Taggart Transcontinental, but Jim knows that is not true at all. He knows that his sister, the smart, better businessman, runs everything. He cannot stand that fact that she, along with the other producers of the world are more capable than he is. When he has the opportunity to prove himself by getting in with the Washington boys, he jumps at it. He wants to validate that he is just as capable as Dagny is, and he wants to prove that he can be just as successful and powerful as the producers he so hates. At the end of the novel Jim has become so brainwashed that he truly wants Galt to die because he doesn't want Dagny and her producers to win. He doesn't think it's fair that they can have it all- brains, power, wealth, and a respected leader.
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Hannah
9/7/2015 05:59:08 pm
Could Jim'd Deep hatred stem from his close personal connection with an industrialist, Dagny, and partly Francisco. He grew up with them, he was close with them, and yet somehow they turned out to be moral people and he turned out to be a looter. It could be a theme of predestination, that your fate is already determined and your only a victim of it. Why is it that Dangy, his own flesh and blood, is an upright, not corrupted industrialist and he is a blood sucking leech that steals to survive? Why is it that he turned out that way and not her?
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Jenny Glidewell
9/7/2015 08:01:29 pm
I believe Jim hates the thinkers of the world more than the other looters because he grew up with Dagny and Francesco. He always seemed jealous of their abilities. He wanted to be a great man but he knew he lacked the brain power that Francesco and Dagny had. Since he knew he wasn't as smart as them he took another approach. He knew he could not outsmart them so he decided to try to beat them another way. He took to the way of the looters because he believed he could drag them down. Jim wants the thinkers of the world to be destroyed because he is jealous of their abilities. That is why Jim wants Galt to die, because he realizes how great Galt is and that only makes him hate himself more. He is the president of Taggart Transcontinental but he knows Dagny is the one who truly runs it. The reason Jim is more consumed by hate than the other looters is because he is aware of the greatness of the thinkers of the world, while the other looters are not. He knows that without them they wouldn't be able to survive, however he tries to fight that the entire book because he wants to be superior to them.
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Kaitlyn Denny
9/8/2015 10:35:27 am
I feel that Jim was tired of growing up next to someone as great as Dagny Taggart. He may have been te president of a railroad but the only reason that the railroad was successful was because of his sister. He aimed to tear her down and was almost excited when he was going to deliver bad news to Dagny about the nationalization of the mines because he wanted to see how she would react and if she would know what to do. He was disappointed to only hear that the mines were destroyed. I believe that his anger and jealousy over her success, as well as D'Anconia's drove him to such an extreme level with the looters. He felt that everything came too easily to them their whole lives and that he and others should be given opportunities that were the same.
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Alyssa Hagerman
9/2/2015 11:25:16 pm
I wanted to specifically discuss Eddie's final scene. He was on his way back to New York when his train broke down, and he had no idea how to fix it. Eventually a caravan of people in old fashioned wagons comes by and offers to take everyone on the train with them to start a new, prosperous community. Everyone agrees to go, including the engineer who was half-heartedly attempting to get the train moving once again. They basically begged Eddie to come along too, but he decided to stay back and not give up on the world. What was so different about Eddie? He did not fall into a category of a looter, a striker, or even the common citizen. What made him stand up for the company, when he had not even been committed to the railroad until Dagny told him he would help her lead it?
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Sarah Guiles
9/3/2015 02:44:42 am
I believe Eddie represents a casualty of the looters--because he doesn't necessarily have a great mind, yet he has a tremendous work ethic. Also, as a child, he always dreamed of being a vital part of the railroad, which he became. He couldn't seem to let it go. He like many other promising others had been sold out to the society around him.
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Elizabeth Byers
9/5/2015 09:47:09 am
Eddie had always been someone who believed in heroes, which is exemplified by his friendship with Dagny and Francisco as a child. They were of greater minds, but they recognized a similar spark inside of Eddie. Since Eddie does worship great people, he fell in love with the railroad, which represented so many different incredible achievements of man. However, his mind was not strong enough to comprehend how the world could give up on the Comet and he couldn't bear to leave behind the last shred of the world he believed was right, where man made trains such as the Comet, behind.
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Holmes
9/7/2015 05:36:56 pm
Ahh, the enigma of Eddie Willers. Is he the forever optimist? Or is he the perpetual fence rider who believes in the heroism of Galt and Dagny and Francisco, but is too afraid to commit, or too insecure to believe in himself? A part of me thinks he is the person that realizes things aren't as they should be, yet hangs on for the change in his immediate surroundings. Is he a fool? Ask yourself how easily you would give up on all you know, all you have known. Are you that strong? Do you believe that firmly in your own self, your own ability? I think Ayn Rand placed a character such as Eddie very purposefully in her story. Can you think of another character that is similar?
Kristen Denny
9/7/2015 07:00:10 pm
In a way, I paired him with Cherryl. Eddie had grown up and loved Dagny. He saw that her actions were just, like when she went away and only told him her location. He knew it was the right thing for her to leave the railroad. The looters were trying to control the production of the people, the minds of the wise, the justice in humanity. I do not know if he thoroughly understood why he knew it was right for her to go but upon her return he burst into tears knowing that she should not have came back. Cherryl was similar in the way that she grew to see how the looters were working. Her connection was through Jim and she grew to see Dagny as productive and as "the good guy," for lack of a better term. Although they were starting to grasp the concepts of the actions around them, they did not act, but observed. It got the best of Cherryl and even Eddie in his own way. On top of this, Eddie had always wanted to be a part of the railroad and with it in his grasp, it was as though society had cheated him out of his dream.
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Destiny Mabe
9/4/2015 03:50:07 pm
When Dagny started finding out about the motor I figured that Galt had invented it. Was this an assumption that was meant to be made? In a way I think it was and in a way I think it wasn't. I think it was meant to be made because Galt had already had a huge influence on the events that had happened. From our knowledge of Galt we knew that he was a strong minded man and that he was the only man who could create such a thing. Then again I don't think this assumption was meant to be made because if we knew who made the motor that would take the since of mystery out of huge art of the book. What do you guys think? was this assumption meant to be made or not?
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Lauren Collins
9/6/2015 07:30:56 pm
I believe that the connection between the motor and John Galt was supposed to be made before it was actually revealed. This is because the book sets up the question of "Who is John Galt?" With this question, the reader should begin to find correlations to things that possibly Galt could be assumed to be associated with. Also, the book gives multiple scenarios that implement the idea that Galt has done something great within his lifetime, but no one can truly find out what it is. With these in mind, the reader should link the greatness of the motor to the great mind of John Galt, as both are mysterious, revolutionary, and filled with greatness.
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Nora Skinner
9/6/2015 09:08:09 pm
I agree with Lauren. I think the connection was supposed to be made. I realized when Dagny named her line the "John Galt Line" that that was not the last time we'd be hearing from him. I knew that John Galt would reappear, I just wasn't sure whether it would be in the form of a man, an idea, or a group of people. When we learned about the motor it only made sense that John Galt would be the creator. His existence had been hinted at throughout the whole book, and it was evident that the name was linked with intelligence. But somehow, knowing that Galt was the inventor of the motor before we were even introduced to his character made it all the better. We were finally being introduced to this genius, a living legend, and we knew what he was capable of so it automatically made us respect and revere him.
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Elizabeth Byers
9/5/2015 11:00:44 am
Someone we never got to talk about in class was Tony. Tony's (The Wet Nurse) transformation through Atlas Shrugged was similar to Cheryl's, except that Tony changed from the "bad" side - the Washington Boy's and Wesley Mouch - to the "good" side - people like Hank and Francisco. However, when Tony finally decided to take a stand for Hank at the mills he was shot. In his final minutes of life, Tony became the man he was supposed to be and was granted respect and honor and love by Hank. Why was it that Tony had to die when he found out how one was supposed to live one's life? Why was he killed for wanting to find his own happiness?
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Lauren Collins
9/6/2015 07:23:13 pm
In a way, Tony could be seen as a martyr for those who want to live pure and noble lives but were taught not to rise against society. After all, "Society knows best!" (Rand 911). He was the embodiment of the struggle to end corruption within the world, but he was unsuccessful in his short time. He shows how others can destroy greatness, especially eager and young greatness just now developing the desire to protect what he is passionate about. He also never truly embraced the "bad" side. Tony had greatness hidden within him all this time.
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Holmes
9/7/2015 05:51:51 pm
Very good. Tony is a martyr, he is the one that must die for the cause. He also, like Alyssa points out, aids in Hank's final decision/revelation. I liked Tony, but like Stephen Kings mentions in his book On Writing, you have to "kill your darlings."
Alyssa Hagerman
9/7/2015 03:01:13 pm
I agree with Lauren, but I feel there was also something deeper behind Tony's death. Tony made his final transition very late in the book, and circumstances would probably have been very different if he had changed his beliefs just a few months earlier. Tony had to leave behind his Washington loyalties at this time because this was the exact time that Hank had to realize he was running out of time. I didn't think he was killed for wanting to find his happiness, I think he had to die in order for Hank to be free to go find his own.
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Lauren Collins
9/6/2015 07:08:30 pm
One of the points from Atlas Shrugged that I would like to discuss is how Starnesville and "the family" are considered evil plans. Making people work for other people's benefit, such as "the family" did, causes a loss in production. People will not live up to their full potential if they are not receiving the rewards from their own hard work. Allen, the tramp, elaborates on this when talking about "the family" by saying, "Evil- plain, naked smirking evil, isn't it? Well, that's what we saw and helped to make..." (Rand 608). These plans make people waste their abilities that could be used for greater production. For example, the plan ruined John Galt's workings on the motor at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. The plan is also the extreme exaggeration of what Rand considers evil, and how it destroys the true production of the world. Great minds will not work under conditions for a loss on their own part. They expect production and profit from their own thinking, unlike the looters who reap the benefits from "the family". Another point of discussion that could follow this topic is the idea of being one's "brother's keeper". Either way, both topics discuss Rand's philosophy between what is evil and what is pure. In another sense, how are the looters truly evil and the producers truly pure?
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Holmes
9/7/2015 05:54:06 pm
Sorry Lauren, I want to repsond, but I'll have to wait for your peers!
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Kristen Denny
9/7/2015 07:27:48 pm
Your thoughts on "the family" are exactly what I would say. Those with abilities should be rewarded for their own work without the moochers and looters getting a dime of it. It was an unjust and greedy system that in no way would have bettered the people. Rewards need to be given to those who work hard so those who refuse to work will be encouraged to be productive. Without that drive, any system put into place will be taken advantage of. Something I would like to touch on is Galt's motor. I don't believe that he would have left that motor to the world knowing where it was headed. After "the family" was set up he knew Starnesville would not end well. He left town and let Starnesville deteriorate. He did not want to give anything to the looters, not even his motor. That was shown in a conversation between him and Dagny. He even went through the time to set up a lock system that would destroy anything inside a room that held the motor and on with his works in his household, just so that the looters could not use it to their advantage. To the main question of looters being evil and producers being pure, the looters acted on their own comfort, did not produce anything but faulty laws, and took from the people repeatedly. Although the producers reaped the benefits of their work, they gave to the people and contributed to society. They kept it up and running by living on a moral code. (This being the case if said "producers" were those including Galt and Francesco, not Stadler or the men involved with Project X.) The producers did not have contradictions in their actions but the looters did. The looters claimed to want to help the people yet worked to bring society down, not caring to reverse the damage. The producers knew how to bring it up and worked to in their own way that they knew would better society after the Washington boys and looters were out of the way.
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Hannah Ross
9/7/2015 05:45:34 pm
One point i wanted to discuss was how Eddie was all along talking to John Galt. I for one had no idea that was who he was talking to, or talking to anyone for that matter. I thought that Eddie had some sort of social incapability that prevented him from having these conversations with a real person so instead he had these long conversations with himself, by himself, to no one. But it turns out that it was John Galt all along. Just like how John has always been there, how he has been the answer to almost everything, how he is a constant in the novel, but only a constant that is realized in the end,
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Kaitlyn Denny
9/8/2015 10:42:16 am
At first, I was unsure who Eddie was talking to too. I figured it was the author's way of filling us in or delivering a recap of what had occurred with industries and Dagny. However, when Eddie started responding to unstated questions about Dagny, I began to guess that it was Galt. Later in the mines it was confirmed whenever Dagny and Eddie talk about Galt working in the mines and he says that he had carried conversations with him but never knew his name.
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Kristen Denny
9/7/2015 07:41:24 pm
A discussion point I had was the Cigarette trail. The cigarette with the dollar sign kept recurring in the novel. It started with Dagny's visit with Hugh Akston and then it popped up again in a meeting with Danagger, when the poor man on the street researched it and said it was not made on earth, and down to when she received her own pack. It was as though each time the cigarette came up, the closer Dagny was to discovering her answer to who "the destroyer" was and where all the wise and successful businessmen were going. I found this fascinating. She had made it to Galt's Gulch when she received a pack of her own. This was the full realization of what Galt was up to and of the fact that Galt's Gulch was exactly the way she felt life should have been lived. I'm assuming this was intentional but perhaps it was not? I found it interesting to note. And maybe the trail could be seen more as the dollar sign? She saw it in the outer world on the cigarettes and then came to Galt's Gulch and learned that it was their symbol given by Francesco. Either way she had the same realization.
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Jenny Glidewell
9/7/2015 07:48:41 pm
One point I wanted to discuss was Cheryl's death. Was it Jim's fault, and why exactly she did it. I believe she was a victim of the looters, and when she realized the evil of Jim and all of the other looters, she knew she couldn't fight them. She had lost all hope in humanity so she gave up. She realized things too late. When she finally saw the truth, she thought that the only good person left in the world was Dagny and she thought that she was fighting a battle that she would ultimately lose. Cheryl saw no hope for the world and understood that at the hands of the looters the world would be led to destruction. I believe there were many other people like Cheryl in the world that understood but saw no hope and gave up. These people were the side effects of Galt's strike. When they went on strike the went against the looters, but also against the innocent people of the world who knew the looters were wrong. Was it right for these men to leave the innocent men of the world behind and let them perish with the looters? Was it justified in that it would be for the greater good for the future generations?
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Kaitlyn
9/8/2015 10:29:28 am
A topic I wanted to discuss was the Fifth Concerto by Richard Halley. It shows up throughout the book, first by a boy working the breaks on one of Dagny's trains. It was also brought up throughout the rest of the novel. I was wondering if this was a symbol of the lives of those that lived lives like that of John Galt? Such as the dollar sign was their symbol, maybe the song was their anthem?
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