CliffsNotes^® on Rand's Atlas Shrugged

by Andrew Bernstein

• ISBN13: 9780764512667
• ISBN10: 0764512668
• Copyright: 2001-03-01
• Publisher: Cliffs Notes

Summary

Who is John Galt? This famous rhetorical question rings through Ayn Rand's best-selling novel as the people's anthem of despair in depressed economic times. Set in the future, the novel follows capitalist magnates as they battle looters, strikers, and the impending ruin of the United States' economy. The romantic and intellectual relationship between Dagny Taggart, the heroine, and John Galt, whose identity as the leader of the strike is eventually revealed, carries the novel to its climax. This novel, controversial when it first appeared in 1957, purports Rand's objectivist philosophy that the individual is free to pursue his or her own happiness without bowing to God or society. Objectivism in action upholds full laissez-faire capitalism as the only philosophy that can protect humankind's freedom to think, to be inventive, and to live productively.

Table of Contents

Life and Background of the Author

Introduction to the Novel

Critical Commentaries

The Theme

The Chain

The Top and the Bottom

The Immovable Movers

The Climax of the d'Anconias

The Non-Commercial

The Exploiters and the Exploited

The John Galt Line

The Sacred and the Profane

Wyatt's Torch

The Man Who Belonged on Earth

The Aristocracy of Pull

White Blackmail

The Sanction of the Victim

Account Overdrawn

Miracle Metal

The Moratorium on Brains

By our Love

The Face Without Pain or Fear or Guilt

The Sign of the Dollar

Atlantis

The Utopia of Greed

Anti-Greed

Anti-Life

Their Brothers' Keepers

The Concerto of Deliverance

"This is John Galt Speaking"

The Egoist

The Generator

In the Name of the Best Within Us

Character Analyses

Critical Essays

CliffsNotes Review

CliffsNotes Resource Center

Index

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