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elbanditoroso's avatar

In the book Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart has slept with all three of the male protagonists by the end of the book. What was Ayn Rand suggesting?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33176points) July 19th, 2015

First it was Francisco d’Anconia, then Hank Rearden, and finally, John Galt.

Atlas Shrugged has been adopted by some libertarians, Tea Partiers, and others as a bible for them in their quest for smaller government. That is not what I am asking about.

Dagny, the female protagonist, at one point of another sleeps with each of the main male characters in the book. (In fact the one recurring character that she doesn’t sleep with Eddie Willers). By the end of the book, when the ‘elite’ have decided to go ‘back to the world’, Dagny is clearly with John Galt, but Francisco and Hank are all in the same room in the Colorado settlement, planning their moves.

What’s Ayn Rand suggesting here about women? I can see a couple of possibilities – do you have others?

- A woman needs at least three men to find contentment?

- Marriage is overrated; serial monogamy is successful?

- Lillian (Rearden’s wife) was just as powerful as Dagny in her own way – and to a degree Cheryl Taggart (Jim’s wife) finally grew a spine. And both of the latter (Lillian and Cheryl) were successful in their own ways – does that make them more powerful women than Dagny?

- Is it easier / more effective to do business what a person you have slept with?

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4 Answers

Thammuz's avatar

Power is the ultimate panty-dropper.

Dagny Taggart is literally an author-insertion persona, and she clearly had a thing for powerful men, hence the masturbatory fantasies.

In all honesty, I tried reading atlas shrugged. It felt like bad fanfic. The characters’ act in a way that makes them completely unrelatable and unrealistic, like the simpering third wheel friend of Rearden’s who has received nothing but help from him and is still in board with his murder, or Rearden’s family, who act like no reasonable human ever would.

I know she’s trying to make a point, to be “symbolic” and shit, but that’s the thing: if your worldview demands that everyone act unrealistically to hold up, it’s a shit worldview and you’re a delusional shithead.

josie's avatar

Who knows. But I have a hypothesis.
I think she fantasized about guys she wrote about.
I think she may have been living vicariously through Dagny Taggert…

Same as Dominique Francon and Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, which is tough to interpret as anything but the proverbial “rape fantasy”.

I read both books. Reading them is sort of like trying to run in the mud. Clunky prose. No real rhythm. Not what I would call artistic. Tough to get into

But very revealing about a person who came of age in the early days of Russian Communism, a double hit if there ever was one.

She had an open affair (open meaning the other spouses were aware of it) while she was married.

A different type of woman for her time to be sure.

josie's avatar

Upon reflection, sort of like what @Thammuz said.

lynfromnm's avatar

I think it says that having sex with more than one person doesn’t make you a reprehensible woman, and that most of the sentiment against multiple relationships for women comes from religious constructs that Dagny rejects.

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