Atlas Shrugged is a very interesting book, so far. The main
storyline of the railroad industry is very interesting. There are a few
confusing and also compelling relationships that I would like to learn more
about as the book progresses, and how they came to be. Those relationships
include that between James Taggart and his sister Dagny, the relationship
between Dagny and her brother and Eddie Willers, and the relationship between
the Taggarts and Hank Rearden.
The
relationship between James and Dagny is interesting to me because while one
would assume that James would be the hard, cold-hearted businessman since he is
the president of Taggart Transcontinental, it is in fact the other way around.
Dagny is in fact the one who keeps the business in line by being the tough one
while James is the more sentimental one. I wonder what happened to make it this
way, and why wouldn’t Dagny become the president if she is more about making
the most money with the business? Isn’t that what one wants in a president of a
company?
The
relationship between Dagny, James, and Eddie is very strange. The author
explains that the three have known one another since they were children.
However, Dagny and James do not treat Eddie as if they have known him for many
years. In fact, they are very disrespectful to him and treat him as a person of
lower class. Perhaps Eddie was some sort of servant to the siblings while they
were growing up so they are used to treating him poorly?
Finally,
the relationship between the Taggarts and Hank Rearden seems as though it will
become very interesting. For some reason, James is not fond of Hank at all,
even though Taggart Transcontinental has been buying for Rearden Metal for ten
years. On the other hand, Dagny is very interested in working with Rearden and
his new type of metal. I wonder how this relationship will develop.
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