Literature Analysis Atlas Shrugged

1. I enjoyed this book but it was ridiculous, the plot is about state control of the means of production and all economic activities. By the start the economy is falling apart due to over regulation and corruption, few entrepreneurs are still around. Dagny Taggart, a woman, is an executive for a railroad in Colorado suffering from the unfair business practices from both the American and Mexican governments. She had been in an intimate relationship with a man named Francisco who now slept around with whores and was worthless. So Dagny finds a new business and love partner Hank Rearden to try to save what is left of their firm. State sponsored scientist give terrible reviews of the Rearden metal company which scares off possible investors. After losing land to fire and more crony capitalism more industrialist leave to who knows where. The protagonist discovers the capitalist are on a “strike in the mind” and refuse to participate in activities because they are run by the “economic dictator”. During the disappear of the captains of industry the public becomes fully aware of the fact that the politicians are not fighting for the public good but their own desires. Rearden comes out of his self-imposed isolation with a striking worker population and free an imprisoned Dagny after a shoot-out. The nation finally falls apart and we are left once again in mystery.
2. The theme much like her other novel is individualism. In this dystopia the state constantly infringes on every aspect of life. Characters must defy the oppression and pursue the things they want and believe in.
3. The tone is Orwellian if that is an adjective but more hopeful. “People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.” “I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.” “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
4. Narrative and Theme “A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.” Irony “If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.” Protagonist “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” Imagery and Hyperbole “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?" “I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?" “To shrug.” Antagonist “She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.”
5. “She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.” Indirect and Direct “What is man? He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur.”
6. No once again the syntax and dictions when describing almost anything it can make the read rather dull but the author favors no people, only principles and actions.
7. The protagonist is a dynamic character. At first she stays peaceful and keeping to herself to violent political action in overthrowing the corrupt government.
8. No much like Nineteen Eighty-Four I loved this book but could not relate to the character nor did I feel like I meet any person. These people are too different than normal people, most people do not stand up for themselves especially as times get tougher. To their defense though we do not preside in a complete dystopia there are problems but we see great people grow out of adversity.