Plot Summary of

Ayn Rand’s
ATLAS SHRUGGED

by Allan Gotthelf

[Note: I prepared this summary for my own use many years ago, when I was a graduate student, to help me see the flow of the story as a whole.
Because it was done for myself, some of it is in “shorthand”, i.e. in incomplete sentences and with just enough information to jog my memory
about those pages of the novel. It was not meant for general consumption and certainly not as a substitute for reading the novel; but you might
find it useful, as I have, in giving you a picture of the whole at a glance, and in reminding you of incidents and issues you’d forgotten.
You’ll recall that within each chapter there are several sections, or “sequences” as Rand called them, which are separated by two
asterisks from each other. I have numbered each sequence within a chapter below. Also, after each chapter title I have given the number of the
page (in the large “trade” edition) on which the chapter begins. --A.G.]

Part I: NON-CONTRADICTION

Ch. I The Theme (3)

(1) Eddie Willers, walking to the Taggart Transcontinental building to see James Taggart (JT), meets a bum, sees
NYC in twilight, thinks of the oak tree incident. He and JT talk about the Rio Norte Line, which is in trouble, and
Orren Boyle, and Ellis Wyatt. Eddie leaves, meets Pop Harper, who expresses a sense of futility and doom.
(2) Dagny listens to brakeman whistling a symphony of triumph, which brakeman says, then denies, is Halley’s
5th concerto - though he only wrote four and retired. Waking up, she finds train on a siding, no one willing to act
because the blame will fall on him; she gives orders to proceed - the trainmen recognize her with respect. She
wants to give Owen Kellogg, young assistant who runs the terminal, the job as superintendent of the Ohio
division...it’s so hard to find good men.
(3) The Comet enters the terminal, Dagny excited at the tunnel which is done in essentials, leaves the train
whistling the theme of Halley’s 5th, the brakeman looking at her tensely.
(4) Eddie Willers is Dagny’s assistant. They are in JT’s office. She wants to rebuild the Rio Norte Line to
compete with the Phoenix-Durango, so she’s ordered rail from Rearden, of Rearden Metal, a new alloy that no one
is buying but which she judged to be superlative. JT vacillates, talks of humanitarian motives for not using the
best, wants to avoid responsibility for such a decision, while Dagny effortlessly takes it, confident and firm. She
leaves, checks with Halley’s music publishers to discover that Halley disappeared some time ago, and never wrote
a 5th concerto. Then Owen Kellogg comes to her to resign; he won’t tell the reason, though he says he still loves
his work. Why is he leaving? “Who is John Galt?”

Ch. II The Chain (27)

(1) The first heat of Rearden Metal is being poured, Rearden is watching, expressionless. He has worked on the
alloy for 10 excruciating years in the lab, at ovens, at his desk; he has been told it can’t be done, but he fought on
with the conviction that it could. He remembers his past and the struggle of his rise. He goes home, bringing a
bracelet of Rearden Metal for his wife; finds her, his mother and brother, who chastise him for being late, for
never being home, for being selfish and materialistic. She sneers sarcastically at the bracelet. Paul Larkin tells
Rearden to be careful of people’s opinion; Rearden rejects that. He gives $10,000 to his brother, Philip for the
Friends of Global Progress, from the desire to see Philip happy for once. Philip asks for cash.

Duplication in any form without written permission of author is prohibited.

Ch. III The Top and the Bottom (44)

Atlas Shrugged
Plot Outline
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(1) Taggart, Boyle, Mouch (Rearden’s Washington man), Larkin meet in a bar to discuss in their evasive way
Boyle’s influencing of members of the Nat’l Assn. of Railroads to do something about the Phoenix-Durango in
exchange for Taggart’s influencing people in Washington to do something’ about Rearden’s monopoly of the ore
business. Taggart discovers that Dagny has removed all the useful property from the San Sebastian line in
Mexico.
(2) Dagny was 9 when she decided she would run the railroad one day. She was bored with the world around her,
and was waiting for exciting adulthood; a young girl proud of her abilities and delighted with the possibilities the
world held and the great men who were out there. She began as a night operator and worked up to the Operating
Department. When her father died, James, who had begun in the Public Relations Department, took over as
President - and began by constructing the San Sebastian line. Francisco D’Anconia, the playboy copper king, had
bought miles of bare mountain in Mexico and Taggart jumped on the bandwagon. Dagny fought against this, but
lost. She was appointed Operating Vice-President when she threatened to resign because of the incompetence of
the former Operating VP. Taggart comes to her office from the cellar meeting to ask about the San Sebastian line,
but refuses to decide which stock to return to it when Dagny turns the decision over to him. Walking through the
terminal concourse, Dagny spots the statue of Nat Taggart, and begins to think about him and his life, which is
recounted. She meets the cigarette man.
(3) Eddie is eating dinner with an alert, receptive track worker whom he enjoys talking with, and tells him about
Dagny, the Rio Norte line and its progress, their reliance on contractor McNamara, and her love of Halley’s
music.

Ch. IV The Immovable Movers (64)

(1) Eddie tells Dagny that McNamara has quit - retired and disappeared. Dagny experiences deep loneliness and
the thought that life should be better than it is. Listening to Halley’s 4th concerto, she reflects on his
disappearance. She reads about Francisco D’Anconia’s affair with Mrs. Vail.
(2) Taggart has slept with Betty Pope, he discovers that the San Sebastian mines and railroad have been
nationalized.
(3) Appearing before the board, JT claims credit for removing the TNT property.
(4) Orren Boyle and JT are shocked, are sure that F. D’A. wouldn’t let the Mexicans get away with it. JT is
refused an appointment by F. D’A.
(5) The Nat’l Assn of Railroads passes the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule, requiring Dan Conway to close the Phoenix-
Durango in nine months. Dagny curses JT, runs out
(6) to see Dan Conway, asking him to fight it and offering help. He won’t, for he is morally disarmed and has
given up the will to understand. Tells her to move fast because Colorado’s industries will collapse without
transportation.
(8) Ellis Wyatt walks into her office, naming issues, demanding service in nine months; Dagny says he will get it.
(9) Rearden will give Dagny the Rearden Metal rail ahead of schedule, in nine months. They spar verbally over
Dagny’s dependence on him, share their attitudes towards ability, work, achievement. He says, “we’re a couple of
blackguards, aren’t we?”, but recognizes that nonetheless they move the world.

Ch. V The Climax of the D’Anconias (89)

(1) Papers say there was nothing of value in the San Sebast. mines.
(2) Dagny goes to see Francisco, thinks about their childhood together and of F’s development, his valuing of
purpose and ability, of her first ball, their first sexual encounters and their continued love relationship, his rise and
the sudden change - his statement “Dagny, don’t be astonished by anything I do...” and his struggle that night in
their bed over something he won’t reveal to her. She remembers reading of his becoming a playboy, and how she
struggled and failed to understand why. When she reaches his hotel room she finds Francisco Domingo Carlos
Andres Sebastián D’Anconia playing marbles. He begins to reveal a part of his motive: the way he is behaving is
the way the world wants him to be - purposeless, incompetent - such is their idea of the “human”. He shows her
how he couldn’t have had affair with Mrs. Vail. Explains that the San Sebastian mines are worthless and will all
collapse; he seems to want to destroy production.
Atlas Shrugged
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Ch. VI The Non-Commercial (127)

(1) Rearden dressing for his party, thinking about his relation to Lillian and the way she tortured him - out of a
form of love he cannot understand, he thinks. He reads about the Equalization of Opportunity Bill, forbidding a
man to own more than one business concern. He goes down to the party where Dr. Pritchett and various others of
Lillian’s crowd are introduced to us. Dagny is there, meets Lillian, talks to HR who is very cold to her. Francisco
enters uninvited, talks with Pritchett, then Taggart, claiming that his behavior in the San Seb. affair was
exemplary by JT’s standards, since it was unselfish, produced no profits but gave a livelihood to the workers,
whom he hired by need and not ability, etc. F. talks to Rearden, trying to understand him. We hear of Ragnar
Danneskjold, and a legend about John Galt and Atlantis. Dagny exchanges her diamond bracelet for Lillian’s of
Rearden Metal after Lillian derogates it.
(2) HR enters Lillian’s room, thinks about his courtship and marriage, and his view of sex - which developed
because, sleeping with women whom he thought he liked but who treated sex as casual, he grew to think of sex as
degrading, as an inborn desire which must be hated and fought. Lillian’s attitude was that sex was a brute animal
function to be granted no significance.

Ch. VII The Exploiters and the Exploited (162)

(1) Dagny has constant trouble getting people to work with or even try Rearden Metal - it’s new and they’re not
willing to try the new. At the line, she meets Ellis Wyatt and a friendship develops between them based on
mutual respect. She find Rearden there and they discuss the bridge, construction problems, etc. Even though
Dagny is in a hurry to get back, Rearden tells her she can’t fly back with him - making some excuse about having
to stop off elsewhere first.
(2) Taggart tries to take Dagny to a debate with Scudder, but when she learns how offensive the title is, she jumps
out of the car, goes to a diner, meets bums - one accuses our culture of materialism, no thinking, etc., mentions
John Galt.
(3) Dr. Potter from the State Science Institute visits Rearden, tries to buy Rearden Metal or to have it taken off the
market. Rearden will not sell: Rearden Metal is his creation. Potter’s threats don’t affect him: Rearden Metal is
good.
(4) Mr. Mowen won’t make switches from Rearden Metal. The State Science Institute issues a statement against
Rearden Metal, a smear without reasons.
(5) Dagny goes to the State Science Institute to see Dr. Robert Stadler, its renowned head. Stadler’s history is
related; he is interested to see her because she is intelligent. He’s not interested in material production, he says;
and he evades the question of the factual truth or falsity of the Rearden Metal statement, explaining why it was
made: the SSI has turned out nothing practical in years, and the discovery of a great new alloy by a private party
not affiliated with the SSI will highlight to the public and to Congress SSI’s ineffectiveness as compared to
private industry.
(6) Taggart panics, but Dagny will go on. She forms a separate company; in defiance of the mood of despair
around her, she calls it the John Galt Line, taking leave of absence and setting up her own small office across from
the TT building.
(7) Dagny tries to borrow money from Francisco. Expressing great admiration for her struggle, he says solemnly
that he cannot.
(8) Dagny gets the producers in Colorado to back the Line, to become bondholders; Rearden is first with one
million dollars. She is underway. Rearden thinks of his persistent sexual desire for Dagny, and condemns himself
for giving his “lowest response” to the highest values he’s ever found in a woman.
(9) Rearden’s mother wants him to give a job to Philip because Philip needs it. HR sees Mr. Ward from Ward
Harvester, and during meeting learns that the Equalization of Opportunity bill has been passed. HR remains
composed under great pain, helps Mr. Ward, then sits alone at his desk thinking of the various businesses he has
created that he now must divest. Under an immense sense of what’s the point, he makes himself continue, his
mind stays active, so much so that he thinks up a new design for the John Galt Line bridge!
Atlas Shrugged
Plot Outline
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Ch. VIII The John Galt Line (217)

(1) Eddie talks to worker about Dagny’s success with John Galt Line, and how she’s counting on Dwight Sanders
to produce locomotives.
(2) Dagny, in her small and dilapidated John Galt Line office, allows herself to slump over her desk, thinks of her
ideal man, “not Francisco, not Rearden” - and is interrupted by the shadow of a man trying with some difficulty to
decide whether to enter her office; finally he decides not to.
(3) Rearden turns his ore mines over to Paul Larkin, explaining how he despises stooge arrangements like that.
Feeling much cleaner in this case, he sells his coal mines to Ken Nagger, who offers to sell the coal to HR at cost.
Wesley Mouch, Rearden’s Washington man, resigns and accepts a position in government. HR offers Eddie
Willers, TT’s representative now that Dagny’s on a leave of absence, a moratorium on TT’s payments to him for
Rearden Metal.
(4) “It won’t stand!” is the universal cry in regard to the Rearden Metal track and bridge. Yet the stock continues
to roll and orders for freight to be sent on the first run of the John Galt Line keep coming in. Dagny meets the
union delegate who threatens to forbid his man to work. She throws him out, says she will ask for volunteers.
Every engineer and fireman on the line volunteers, Pat Logan is chosen out of a hat as the engineer.
(5) Dagny calls press conference, Rearden joins her at it. They will ride in the cab of locomotive.
(6) They are in Cheyenne for the first run of the John Galt Line. An air of excitement is present there and
(7) all along the track. As the train speeds at 100 mph, Dagny enters the area of the giant engine, is intensely
aware of the relation between mind and body which make this train and this track possible. She has an intense
emotional response to Rearden sitting there in the cab. They meet Ellis Wyatt at other end, eat dinner with him,
make passionate love.

Ch. IX The Sacred and the Profane (253)

(1) Awakening, Rearden tells her what he thinks of her, of himself, and of their affair: contempt, for them both for
having this low desire and being sexual animals, rather than being above such a desire, great, proud and in control.
He is dependent on her for his pleasure, and he has always prided himself on being independent, and he must hide
this act and this relationship from the public. He will give up his self-respect so that it can continue, he says,
that’s how low he’s fallen. Dagny first covers herself in horror, then understands and laughs out loud, throwing
his statement back at him: she’s worse, she has no guilt over him, she just wants his body, “not your mind...[only]
your lowest desire”, knowing, as Rearden does not, how much more is involved in sexual desire.
(2) James Taggart meets a girl behind a dime store counter, who recognizes him and expresses great admiration
for his achievement at building the John Galt Line, which, she has read in the papers, was really his achievement,
though his sister took the credit. She is puzzled with his depression over the Line’s success and tries to lift his
spirits from the thought of the evil around him. Her background is given: Cheryl Brooks is intensely idealistic and
has preserve her spirit against the background of a passive, hostile family. She cannot understand his talk which
seems to attack achievement and production. Taggart feels a sense of power over her.
(3) Rearden comes to Dagny’s apartment where he stresses her ability and her pull on him. Unable to make her
tell who her first love was, he takes her violently.
(4) Mr. Mowen bemoans the fact that so many companies are leaving the east for Colorado where the laws are
milder, speaking to a man working a wrecking machine - the man is Owen Kellogg. Wesley Mouch is appointed
Top Coordinator of the National Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources.
(5) The John Galt Line is turned over to TT as the Rio Norte Line. Rearden comes to Dagny’s apartment where
they discuss a banquet given in his honor which was not personally meaningful to Rearden. They plan a
transcontinental track of Rearden Metal. They decide to take a vacation together, their first, both of them, in
years.
(6) Driving through Wisconsin, they look for an ore mine but in the process find the country deteriorating.
Looking for the site of the once great Twentieth Century Motor Factory, they find the area and people broken and
desolate. They find the factory and start searching through it. Dagny screams - she has found a strange coil of
Atlas Shrugged
Plot Outline
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wire, the broken remnant of a motor, which the remains of a nearby manuscript indicates once converted static
electricity into kinetic energy - and it worked! But why was it left behind to rot??

Ch. X Wyatt’s Torch (292)

(1)-(2) Dagny and HR try to trace the owners of the factory in order to find the inventor. The county clerk refers
them to an owner, Mayor Bascom, who has no factory records left. He is “a practical man”, didn’t care about
records, but bought it from the bankrupt bank run by Eugene Lawson, “the banker with a heart”. Phoning Eddie,
Dagny discovers that “they’re planning to kill Colorado”.
(3) A host of restrictions is demanded by everyone. Dagny tells JT that this is his department, that if they destroy
Colorado they’ll destroy TT. “We survived the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule.” “Because I saved you.”
(4) Rearden struggles to keep his mills functioning even when ore supplies are not delivered as Paul Larkin had
promised. He searches the country for ore. But he can’t fight back - he has “no right to condemn anyone...” after
his sexual transgressions, as he sees them. He will fight but without fire. Lillian comes into his room, explains
her “need of him” and how love is self-sacrifice of everything.
(5) Dagny speaks to Lawson,
(6) then to Hunsacker, who says that it was determinism, due to machines, that he failed. Midas Mulligan
wouldn’t lend him money, so Hunsacker sued on grounds of need and, though Judge Narragansett rejected it, a
higher court overruled him. Both Narragansett and Mulligan then disappeared, Mulligan closing up his entire
empire. Hunsacker had no money for laboratories because he remodeled the workers’ quarters as the first priority.
(7) Dagny goes to Louisiana to look for the Starnes’ heirs. Ivy Starnes talks about her plan, “from each according
to her ability, to each according to his need” - and the mechanics of it, the mass meetings, etc. The chief engineer
at the time was William Hastings.
(8) Hastings died five years ago, his wife tells Dagny. He had quit when the Starnes’ plan was instituted, but he
resigned and retired from his next job, for reasons he would not discuss even with his wife. Yes, she had heard
about the motor, it was the work of a young assistant of his. This assistant had known a man whom Mrs. Hastings
saw, believe it or not, working as a cook in a diner near the Lennox Copper Foundry outside of Cheyenne.
(9) The man at the diner was efficient and competent, making the best hamburger Dagny had ever tasted. She
offered him a job as head of her dining car department, but he wasn’t interested. He knew the young engineer but
won’t tell her his name. His own name? Hugh Akston. The great philosopher, who disappeared? Yes. “The last
of the great advocates of reason?” “Or the first of their return.” Why is he working as a cook in a diner in the
middle of nowhere? He won’t say. On the way back to New York Dagny discovers that Mouch has issued a set
of directives limiting the speed of and number of cars on trains, and the production of Rearden Metal, requiring a
“fair share” to be given to all; closures and moves are forbidden and moratoriums are granted on payments of
interest and principal on all railroad bonds. With a sense of great urgency she tries to phone Ellis Wyatt but there
is no answer, and then she sees from the railway station that the hill of Wyatt Oil is a solid sheet of flame. Wyatt
has destroyed his creation and disappeared.

Part II: EITHER-OR

Ch. I The Man Who Belonged on Earth (339)

(1) Dr. Stadler has discovered the book published by SSI’s administrator, Floyd Ferris, titled Why Do You Think
You Think?, arguing that people are just chemicals and determined by their environment, and can’t expect to think
for themselves: they should leave the decisions to authorities and government. Ferris placates him, quoting back
his line “What can you do when you have to deal with people?” There is something going on called “Project X”
but Ferris keeps insists that Stadler needn’t bother himself about it. When Dagny telephones, asking him to come
to NY to examine the motor, Stadler is glad and goes immediately.
(2) Colorado begins to shrink and die. The oil men and the world discover how much they needed Wyatt.
[Important passage.] Coal becomes the new fuel. Then Stockton, the furnace producer, retires. Then Lawrence
Hammond, who made cars and trucks. Frozen railroad bonds can be “defrozen” if there is “essential need”.
Atlas Shrugged
Plot Outline
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Dagny couldn’t find a scientist to research and rebuild the motor, so she’s asked Stadler. He reads the manuscript
with excitement, speaks of the great mind that produced this, solving an immensely difficult theoretical problem
“just” to build a motor, thinks back to a former student of his, then tells her of a physicist who would not work for
him, so he’s probably the man for her: Quentin Daniels in Utah.
(3) Rearden rejects an order for Rearden Metal from the SSI’s Project X. The controls over his production and
distribution require him to supply to everyone and as a result his major customers get too little. The “Wet Nurse”,
a relativist just out of college, was sent as Deputy Director of distribution. A man from the SSI comes to speak to
HR about his rejection of their order, HR names the issues, plays it straight, demanding that they bring their guns
out in the open. The SSI man shrinks in horror at the mention of guns. HR feels he is on to something in his
method of dealing with that man.
(4) Dagny sits in her room thinking of her relationship with Rearden, his gifts to her, and how he is beginning to
see the relationship as a great, not an evil thing, hand how love is selfish. She and Rearden discuss the difference
between themselves and others. Another time, Rearden, feeling disgust, cannot generate a desire for Dagny;
regaining his love of life, he begins to. They are beginning to discover the nature of the looters, that they need
some sort of sanction from the producers.

Ch. II The Aristocracy of Pull (379)

(1) Roger Marsh has disappeared. Quentin Daniels is progressing slowly. The cigarette butt with the dollar sign
that Dagny got from Hugh Akston could not be traced by the cigarette man in the terminal.
(2) Rearden and Danagger make an illegal deal to provide RM for the coal mines. Lillian arrives in New York for
Taggart’s wedding and asks HR to take her. Though he doesn’t want to go, he believes she is in the right in
wanting his company and thus he has no right to refuse, so he takes her there.
(3) Getting ready for the wedding, Cherryl remembers her relationship with Jim. He dated her, stressing to his
friends how poor she was. She could not understand his complaints about the world. She thought people who
make nasty comments about Jim envied his greatness. He proposed on her doorstep; she’s photographed as
the”Cinderella girl”.
(4) At the wedding there were two types, the “Favor” and the “Fear”. Mouch did not show up. JT and Boyle
exchange words over the issue of pull. Dagny meets Lillian and Rearden. Lillian offers HR’s presence as a
wedding gift to JT. Lillian begins talking to Dagny about the nature of women and the implications of Dagny’s
refusing to give back the bracelet. Francisco appears, and Taggart is flustered when F. mentions knowledge of the
secret investments in D’Anconia Copper made by Taggart and his boys. F. identifies the issue of the aristocracy
of pull. Rearden, smiling at his presence, approaches him. F., in answer to Scudder’s remark that money was the
root of all evil, asks what is the root of money, and identifies money as the insignia of free and productive men,
that the root of money is the creative mind of a producer, that it is the insignia of justice, of trade. But, he goes
on, causality cannot be reversed, money cannot provide values or intelligence or happiness or self-esteem.
Achieve it dishonestly and it will be a reminder of shame. The only substitute for money is a gun, the men who
live by force but “count of those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money.” Then society is
doomed. The U.S. is a country of money - which means, a country of reason, justice, freedom, production,
achievement. Rearden and Francisco discuss each other. He tells Rearden about the fire to be discovered at the
ore docks and the rock slide that will happen at the mines. Though Rearden breaks out laughing, he condemns F.
for giving up and for destroying everything. F. purposely starts a panic wave of selling of D’Anconia stock
among James Taggart and friends.

Ch. III White Blackmail (423)

(1) Lillian leaves for home, Rearden goes to Dagny’s place, where they discuss his marriage, her first man, whom
she refuses to name, and Francisco. “Dagny...in Ellis Wyatt’s house...I think I was lying to myself.”
(2) Rearden finds Lillian waiting for him in his apartment. She knows he is having an affair and is convinced that
it’s a slut he’s involved with. She wants no divorce, no separation; he is to be condemned to hypocrisy, to feel
worthless. He thinks that this is her way of bearing suffering.
Atlas Shrugged
Plot Outline
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(3) Floyd Ferris comes to see Rearden to secure the order of RM for the SSI, threatening to reveal his deal with
Danagger. HR is surprised that Ferris takes pleasure in HR’s guilt - but that’s what the laws are for, Ferris says,
that’s the way to rule people: have non-objective laws that everyone must break and “then you cash in on the
guilt”. Rearden finds a flaw in the system, says he will go on trial.
(4) Eddie speaks to the worker about the horrors in the world, about Dagny’s idea of the destroyer, about
Danagger’s readiness to quit and that she’s going to see him the next day to talk him out of it.
(5) Dagny goes to see Danagger, but someone is with him in his office, and Dagny is kept waiting long past her
appointment time. When he enters his office, he announces that he has decided to retire, but will not tell her why
or who the man was who was in his office. The man had left a cigarette butt with a dollar sign.
(6) Rearden can neither blame Danagger nor follow him. Francisco turns up at the mills, calls Rearden a moral
man, but R. can’t understand why. F. explains: in the production of steel, R. is rational, independent, has
integrity and pride, and is productive - though not in his dealing with other men, since he has turned the Line of
RM over to the looters, the incompetents, the unjust. F. sums up the virtues and the abuses which R. has been
subject to for having those virtues, and states how R. bows to their code in allowing them to brand him as
immoral. R. has been accepting an undeserved guilt, F. says. The siren for a breakout sounds and they both run
down and begin throwing clay. Rearden saves Francisco from falling. F., observing R., understands the love of
action and work that can keep Rearden at the job, and says that what he came to tell Rearden can wait.

Ch. IV The Sanction of the Victim (461)

(1) At the Rearden Thanksgiving dinner everyone is thanked except the one man who has provided it. Lillian
taunts him, and he is beginning to see her moral code - which could hold him guilty only if he accepts it, only if
he remains generous and of good will. She seems to enjoy her vengeance, but he cannot believe her so evil, nor
his mother. However, he threatens to throw Philip out if he ever spouts such anti-business garbage again. In the
face of this insult and neglect he walks out and leaves for New York, against Lillian’s protest. On the way he
thinks of the Wet Nurse and the fact that he did not turn R. in for the Danagger deal. He has come to like Rearden
and the plant and cannot act on his relativism. R. goes to Dagny’s office, tells her to expect extra rail - and of
RM.
(2) At his trial he refuses to recognize their right to try him and tells them to arrest him and carry him out. He will
not sanction their act. He challenges the doctrine of conflicts of interest and will not allow them to sacrifice him.
He works for his own profit, dealing voluntarily with men - and he is proud of it. He will not apologize for his
success. The crowd is on his side.
(3) Businessmen tell him he was too extreme. He is revulsed by people around him. He goes to see Francisco and
they discuss Rearden and his trial. R. asks him how he could find pleasure in running after cheap women. F.
explains that only a man who tried to reverse cause and effect and gain self-esteem from sex would do that. But
sex is an effect and expression of a man’s sense of his own value. Both sex and money are thought to come from
the body as apart from the mind. In fact, both come from the mind. Sexual choice is the result and the sum of
one’s fundamental convictions. Only the possession of a heroine can give a man of self-esteem a sense of
achievement. Love is one’s response to one’s highest values. The man who desires the evil is the one who has
flaws as values and who despises himself. Francisco has never touched these women. He wants to be known as a
playboy. Rearden tells F. that he plans to continue selling RM to customers of his choice and that he has ordered
the copper from D’Anconia Copper. Francisco is upset to hear that but will not make a phone call - and the ship
is sunk by Danneskjold.

Ch. V Account Overdrawn (496)

(1) For the first time, Rearden cannot deliver on time. Things are collapsing all over. People are told that the
sacrifice and privation are virtues. At the TT board meeting Mr. Weatherby from Washington is present. They
bargain over wage and freight rates and discover evasively whether to close the Rio Norte Line and finally do.
Francisco meets Dagny afterwards and they talk about the board and about men of ability and Nat Taggart. He
tries to show her that the looters survive only because she works for them.
Atlas Shrugged
Plot Outline
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(2) Dagny has gone to Colorado with HR to buy whatever machinery could still be found in the closed factories.
People complain about the closing of the Rio Norte.
(3) Lillian and Taggart have lunch over her failure to deliver the goods at Rearden’s trial. She discovers that HR
is coming to NY by train but is not on the passenger list.
(4) She waits at the station, finds HR and sees Dagny. Understanding whom HR is involved with, she is shocked.
She tries her claim on him; he is indifferent. He will go on married if she wishes; his standards are not hers, he
says. And in her insults thrown at the name of Dagny, he sees “the terrible ugliness of that which had once been
his own belief” about sex.

Ch. VI Miracle Metal (532)

(1) Mouch, Thompson, Ferris, Weatherby, Lawson, Kinnan, Taggart and Boyle discuss Directive 10-289 and how
to implement it. Ferris stresses the need for force and guilt, Taggart and Lawson the need for sacrifices. Mouch’s
nondescript background is presented. Kinnan uses his union size to gain power. The premise of the directive is:
things are getting worse, lets keep everything as it is. No new discoveries, no companies going out of business.
All patents are to be turned over voluntarily to the government, no new books. The intellectuals, Ferris says,
won’t complain. Taggart offers to deliver Rearden.
(2) Dagny wakes up May 1 in her office. Francisco calls and gives her the news of Directive 10-289. She calls
for a newspaper, reads it, and quits. She tells Rearden and leaves for her cabin in the woods.
(3) The head of Rearden’s union quits. The Wet Nurse tells R. he can do whatever he wants. Men vanish. Lillian
leaves town. Ferris comes to see R. and tells him that he has evidence of his affair with Dagny and will smear it
all over the newspapers if R. doesn’t sign over Rearden Metal. R. realizes explicitly how they are using his
virtues against him - Lillian’s system of inducing guilt is world-wide: the punishment that requires the victim’s
own virtues as the fuel to make it work. And he realizes that he had damned as guilty the best within him, that he
had broken their code and taken it as guilt, and so he hid it - in the name of pity for Lillian. He was wrong not to
condemn her standards (justice is discussed). He cannot now let Dagny take the brunt of the consequences for his
action. He signs the “gift certificate”.

Ch. VII The Moratorium on Brains (567)

(1) Eddie tells the worker that TT’s best men are quitting and the worst types are replacing them. Men from
Washington are demanding special trains. Eddie tells him where Dagny is.
(2) Rearden is walking from the mills to his apartment in Philadelphia. He has told his lawyer to buy a divorce,
whatever it takes. A man steps out of the trees, to return to Rearden all the money that has been taken from him
by force - all the income tax he has had to pay - in gold, the only true currency. The gold bar is a symbol of
justice. The man is Ragnar Danneskjold, the “pirate”. He explains that he chose to be neither a looter nor a
victim, so in that society his choice is the only moral way. He is fighting the Robin Hood idea that need is an idol
requiring human sacrifice. His only love is human ability. Rearden refuses the money, threatening to reveal him
to the police. A police car approaches and Rearden acts to save Ragnar’s life.
(3) Kip Chalmers is traveling west on the Comet when a rail splits. He demands a train. No one will take
responsibility, so Dave Mitchum sets it up so that a young night dispatcher will take the blame. The wood-
burning locomotive is taken through the Winston tunnel, and all die. Numbers of the passengers are shown to
have intellectual responsibility for the disaster, in that their ideas and actions led ultimately to this result.

Ch. VIII By Our Love (608)

(1) Dagny lives at the cabin fighting the pain. She works at fixing up the place but she keeps thinking of the
railroad. She cannot give it up because she is in the right, but she cannot decide what to do. Francisco shows up
and proceeds to tell her about his last 12 years. She realizes that she would have betrayed everything if she had
stayed at her desk at TT under Directive 10-289. F. quit 12 years ago, but he had to stay to destroy D’Anconia
Copper. She says she can neither give up nor go back. F. insists that she is supporting her destroyers, that she is
Atlas Shrugged
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not abandoning TT, since she is TT, the rail without her mind is dead. Without her the looters cannot survive.
Then the radio announces the tunnel crash. Against F.’s protests, she runs off to her car and drives to New York.
(2) Taggart has a letter of resignation. (His emotions are described.) Eddie will not tell him where Dagny is. She
returns, to find everyone of ability gone. Nothing has been done since the morning because no one wants the
blame. Dagny gives the orders. She finds out about the frozen trains. She won’t speak to Mouch when he calls,
remembering how he betrayed Rearden, but she tells Weatherby to get Washington to lay off. She calls Rearden
and says “They’re holding us by our love of it, and we’ll go on paying so long as there’s still one chance left...”

Ch. IX The Face without Pain or Fear or Guilt (633)

(1) Dagny is in her apartment, F. comes. He cannot convince her that she is not serving her values by continuing
to run the line. Dagny realizes that he is one of the people she calls the destroyers. Rearden enters. He accuses
F. of trying to hurt Dagny in some way. He makes F. admit that Dagny is the woman he loves. He slaps F., who
with great effort and the vision of a certain man’s face, holds back. Then he leaves. D. tells R. that F. had been
her first. He takes her violently. A letter from Daniels had arrived, announcing that he had quit, that he would
not work under 10-289, that he would not allow anything he produced to be used by the looters. He answers her
telephone call and promises he will not leave until she arrives in Utah; she leaves by train. Eddie discovers in her
apartment the robe with HR, and is in shock; he has been in love with her. In the cafeteria, he tells the worker
that he, the worker, looks as if he’s never known pain or fear or guilt; he tells him of Quentin Daniels and his
work, and that she’s sleeping with Hank Rearden. The worker rushes out.

Ch. X The Sign of the Dollar (654)

(1) Dagny discovers a tramp in her car and, seeing something in his eyes, gives him dinner. He had worked all
over the country, but his first job for twenty years was at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. He thinks he
might know where the expression “Who is John Galt?” comes from. The Starnes heirs installed a new plan,
whereby those of ability suffered and the worst became the needy. So they lost their men of ability. The more
you lived up to their code the more you suffered. Then they began to hate their fellow workers where they had
worked as a community before. The power-seeking mentalities of the Starnes are described. The motive on the
part of those who stayed was the desire for the unearned. At the first meeting an engineer, a young man, stood up
and said that he doesn’t accept that moral law. He will put an end to this once and for all - he will stop the motor
of the world. His name was John Galt.
(2) The train stops and Dagny realizes she is on a frozen train. She runs into Owen Kellogg. She puts the tramp,
Jeff Allen, in charge of the unruly passengers and begins walking to a track phone. He has the dollar sign
cigarettes. She finds a telephone and reaches a station, and with threats gets help. She sees an airport and finds a
plane. Landing in Afton, Utah, she discovers that Daniels has left with another man who flew in just recently.
It’s the “destroyer” and she will not let him take Daniels and the hope for the future the motor represents. She
follows them, and crashes into the Rockies, her last words being “Oh hell, who is John Galt?”

Part III - A IS A

Ch. I: Atlantis (701)

Atlas Shrugged
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(1) Dagny wakes up in the presence of a man with an incredible face, proud, guiltless, certain, serene. His name?
John Galt. It was he whom she was following. She hears music in the distance - it is Richard Halley playing his
5th Concerto. She and Galt begin walking. She sees they are in a valley, and then sees a town. She meets Hugh
Akston - and discovers that Galt was the inventor of the motor. She meets Midas Mulligan. She learns Galt was
Akston’s third pupil. Then Ellis Wyatt. She will stay in the guest room of Galt’s house, says Galt. Dagny
remembers that she had viewed Galt as an enemy; discovers how thoroughly Galt has been watching her. Then
Dr. Hendriks, who has invented a portable X-ray machine. She hears of Lawrence Hammond, Dwight Sanders,
and Judge Narragansett. The power system there is run by Galt’s motor. Then she meets Quentin Daniels. She
finds them loving and enjoying life. The point is made that, e.g., Sanders Aircraft is wherever Dwight Sanders is.
The valley operates on a gold standard. Then Dick McNamara. People have come to the valley because there
they own their own work, and live their own way, without living for others, or under a gun, all living on the
principle of trade, each acting for his own benefit, but expanding the possibilities in life for the others. She finds
each one working at some specific job, each one growing, planning for the future - dealing with each other as free,
rational beings. Dagny sees it as a glorious world. She finds, lying apart from the other houses, Francisco’s
simple, lonely house. Dagny sees the powerhouse - as a great achievement, as a time-saver and life-saver for
man, as the product of a great man. It’s night and she’s very tired - she goes to sleep.
(2) Dagny goes to Mulligan’s house, where she finds her friends. They all welcome her in admiration, and discuss
the meaning of the valley, and Dagny’s life-long acceptance of that meaning: to be open, rational, with other
rational men one respects. They have all been working on projects, but their results will not be offered to the
world. Why not? Because, says Galt, they are on strike - the men of the mind are on strike. Though the mind has
been regarded as evil throughout history, it has been responsible for human survival. But the men of the mind
went on working, even when they were treated unjustly, condemned, forced, made to sacrifice. The looters
survived by destroying their victims. Now they shall learn the meaning of their creed. We have withdrawn
everything they regard as evil. Each person in the room explains why he left the world. Akston quit because
Pritchett was regarded as a philosopher, living off the reputation Akston had given philosophy; Pritchett sought to
destroy philosophy and use it to enslave thought. Mulligan quit because he was made to support worthless men in
place of great young men. Judge Narragansett quit because he was required to uphold unjust laws, to use force
against men who came to him to have their rights protected. Richard Halley quit because his greatness was
required to serve not the values in people but their flaws; they were to gain self-esteem from seeing his life
dedicated to them. Dr. Hendricks would not put his great skill under the rule of those incompetents who thought
they could rule him precisely because they needed his skill. Let them see surgeons who will work under such a
system. Ellis Wyatt would not let them destroy him with the product of his own effort. Ken Danagger quit to
show who needs whom - and whether they can set the terms of his work. Quentin Daniels would not place a
scientist’s mind in the service of brute force. Galt refused to be born with any original sin - he would not accept
guilt for his mind and value. Leaving his motor behind, Galt thought of the doctrine that wealth is a matter of
natural resources and that machines condition the mind. Galt convinced his strikers by giving them a moral
sanction. Their striker’s commitment was not to work in one’s own profession, not to give the world the benefit
of one’s mind. They set aside one month to meet, to live in a rational world, to trade their achievements. When
Colorado was destroyed, their valley grew. They will return when the looter’s code has collapsed, has reached its
final consequence.

Ch. II The Utopia of Greed (752)

(1) Dagny meets Ragnar who explains his battle and tells her of the money coming to her. Dagny is shocked at
hearing that Ragnar is married, given the riskiness of his work; his wife is Kay Ludlow, the great actress. Galt
decides that Dagny will stay with him for the month. D. says she will earn her room and board by being cook and
housemaid.
(2) Owen Kellogg arrives, tells Dagny of the outside world’s belief that she had crashed and died - and D. realizes
how tortured Rearden must be. She sees herself caught between two worlds. Francisco arrives - he had been
flying all over the Rockies in search of her plane - and discovers that Dagny is all right. He tells her that he has
always loved her, and it was because of that love that he deserted her. He tells her why he had to be a playboy,
how D’Anconia Copper was being slowly destroyed by looters who lived off his ability: the harder he worked, the
Atlas Shrugged
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more they drained. He was fighting to clear the way for the world and the kind of people he loved and deserved.
They will always love each other, he says, even if there’s someone to whom she will grant a greater response.
(3) Dagny visits Francisco’s home and they speak of his plans to rebuild D’Anconia Copper some day. Dagny
and Francisco experience a moment of desire - and she realizes the difference between what she had felt for
Francisco and what for Galt at the powerhouse. She cannot believe that her conflict is unresolvable, that she is
doomed to the unattainable. Galt’s departures every evening, Dagny finds out with relief, are to lecture. She
wants Galt intensely, but she cannot have him until she accepts the valley and what it stands for fully - and she
cannot. Galt stops in at her room - and cannot get himself to leave. Galt can hold Dagny, they realize - but
neither he nor she will fake reality.
(4) Richard Halley plays for Dagny. An artist is a trader, he stresses; he wants her understanding, and her
emotions only for the right reason. The artist and the businessman - the same principle moves them both: thought
and the dedication to truth and action. Art is excruciating work, and the industrialist, not the “vehicle of higher
mysteries”, is the creative man. Kay Ludlow wants to portray human greatness, the mother to raise her children in
a rational, benevolent universe. That evening at Akston’s house, Akston speaks of Robert Stadler. You can hold
the earth as malevolent only if you have the wrong standard of good and evil. Would Galt work under Ferris,
Francisco under Mouch, Ragnar under Pritchett? Human life is not inherently irrational as they say, but by
accepting obscene doctrines you make it irrational.
(5) Dagny goes with Francisco and Galt to look at Francisco’s mine. Seeing the need for a railroad to help bring
down the ore, she begins talking of how to do it - then stops at the thought of building three miles of rail while
abandoning a transcontinental system. And she could not stay, Galt says, by not hearing about the destruction of
TT: nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever. Dagny wonders if Galt would give her up to
Francisco. F. asks her to stay a week with him, she makes Galt decide, and he says no. She thinks of what it
would have meant if he had said yes, and he explains, as if in an abstract discussion, that there are no conflicts of
interest among rational men. Hank Rearden’s plane flies overhead - she thinks of those like him fighting to save
the world, and she cannot give up if one chance remains for TT.
(6) On the next to last day the strike leaders meet to discuss final plans. Galt is not sure if he is leaving. In
describing the dangers of the outside world, Mulligan envisions the collapse of TT, and Dagny shouts, “No, it
won’t!” “You have made your decision,” says Galt. Dagny explains that men still love their lives and so long as
they do she cannot lose her battle. Galt, undecided before, now says he is going back for one more year - and
Francisco realizes. “But, of course,” he says. Dagny is going out to fight for the world of the valley, she says. If
you lose, Galt says, never forget that that world is real, it’s possible - it’s yours.

Ch. III Anti-Greed (816)

(1) Stadler has come to see a demonstration of Project X. Everyone of importance in his world has come. It is a
weapon of destruction by sound rays, and application of Stadler’s work which is put forth as a weapon of peace.
Ferris explains to Stadler its actual use. Stadler is required to give a speech in behalf of its greatness - and does;
he could not do otherwise, this was the logical consequence of his idea that there is no way to deal rationally with
people.
(2) Dagny reaches NYC, having been shocked at the faces of people compared to those in the valley, the senseless
guilt and agony those in the outside world bear. She phones Rearden. She returns to her office to find Cuffy
Meigs, the Director of the “Railroad Unification Plan”. Trains have been run by favors, on the pretense of being
for the “public welfare”. She is asked by Jim to reassure the public about the state of the industry, but will not.
The plan encourages those who run no trains. [Like farm subsidies.] He tells her she is to appear on the Scudder
radio program. She refuses, then Mrs. Rearden shows up to blackmail her. She decides to go on.
(3) Dagny comes on the program and tells the truth about their relationship and the blackmail. She thinks of what
this will do to Galt, but she has to say it. She returns home and finds Hank there. She breaks down and cries -
and thinks of having to tell him about Galt. But he had heard it in the past tense she used on the radio to refer to
their relationship. He tells her that he loves her, with the same pride and meaning with which he loves his work,
his ability to work, his mind. He realizes fully the wrongness of his statement at Wyatt’s house. He knows now
that it was his mind that he was giving her. He had accepted the breach between mind and body both in
production and in love. [Very important theme.] He realizes that the consequence of his acceptance of those
ideas is turning over the world to the looters, himself over to his family, and Dagny over to the public. He has
Atlas Shrugged
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learned in what way a lie is an act of self-abdication and how it destroys the value sought after. But he is now set
free, and happy, even though this is the end of their relationship as it has been, even though she has found the man
she loves. He is the man who invented the motor, she explains, the “destroyer”. She has vowed not to say
anything, but that she had discovered on her own. Such a place (where those who disappeared have gone) does
exist, she confirms to him, and they are all alive.

Ch. IV Anti-Life (864)

(1) D’Anconia Copper is nationalized. Taggart is beginning to collapse psychologically; only continued evasion
is saving him from the knowledge of his evil. He goes home to Cherryl, but she only names the issues. She is
beginning to realize his full evil. She thinks of the first months of their marriage. She set herself the highest
standards and achieved them only to find out that Jim didn’t want her confident and in control. She discovers that
it’s Dagny who runs the railroad. She tries to discover why he married her, and what he wanted. He wanted
unearned love, admiration, greatness, she realizes, wanted to be like Hank Rearden without the necessity of being
him, without the necessity of being. She leaves the house,
(2) and comes to see Dagny, to apologize for having insulted her. Cherryl is afraid of what Jim and his friends are
- and that they exist. Dagny tells her that she must never think that other people’s existence is a reflection on
hers. She feels as if there’s no chance for her to exist if they do. Stand on your own judgment, Dagny tells her.
Things are solid, Cherryl says, but people - how is she to deal with them? Dagny remained unmangled, she
explained to Cherryl, by knowing that her life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight. Some
people want to destroy this. When you learn to understand their motive, you’ll be safely out of their reach.
(3) Lillian comes to see Jim to get him to stop HR’s divorce proceedings. He can’t. He tells her of the
nationalization. She expresses her admiration, at the actual, destructive nature of the deed. She has failed to
bring down HR, but she is still “Mrs. Rearden” for another month. He did notice her existence. “I can’t bring
men down to their knees in admiration - but I can bring them down to their knees.” Taggart took her, saying
“Mrs. Rearden”. For the first time, he thought, he was himself.
(4) Cherryl returns, and discovers what has gone on. Taggart married her, she realizes, because he thought she
would accept him as he is - because she was worthless and would make no demands of him. He wanted it to be
alms (charity) for both and from both. But he married her for more than that - he also saw that she was struggling
to rise, and wanted to defeat that. He is a killer for the sake of killing. She tells him this, he strikes her, and she
runs out. Where can she go? The harder she worked, anywhere, the more malevolence she would get. They -
Jim’s people - were not exceptions, as she had thought, they were the whole world. The reward of achievement
was destruction. What could she say to people to warn them? Where were the men who could have spoken? She
would not live in such a world, so, out of the last loyalty to her values, she kills herself.

Ch. V Their Brothers’ Keeper (909)

(1) The country is collapsing, as is Jim. Pull is the standard, and the railroad is also collapsing. He wants Dagny
to take the gov’t actions as the given, as reality, and change real reality by a wish. That was the goal of all their
intellectual corruption. On the day the nationalization is passed, D’Anconia Copper is entirely destroyed - the
D’Anconia fortune has ceased to exist. Dagny and Rearden are glad - the people have gotten the consequences of
their actions. Hank has been shipping bootleg steel to producers. They need it most in Minnesota for farm tools.
“Brothers, you asked for it!” is Francisco’s answer to the world.
(2) Philip shows up at Rearden mills to make sure Rearden is OK, then to get a job. Something might happen to
Rearden: he wants to make sure that Rearden doesn’t quit - and leave Philip stranded. He thinks of the answer to
Philip’s accusation that he, Rearden, has never felt anything or never suffered. They are the men who worship
pain, Rearden thinks. The Wet Nurse asks for a job. Rearden wants to given him one but can’t because of the
Unification Board. “They’re up to something, Mr. Rearden”, he says.
(3) This is the best harvest in years in Minnesota. Copper supplies are non-existent. There were no cars sent to
Minnesota, Dagny discovers; Meigs has sent them to Ma Chalmers’ soybeans. The farmers in Minnesota riot and
destroy their wheat.
Atlas Shrugged
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(4) Dagny is at a party-meeting with the Washington boys, to discuss what to close down next. She says to drop
the west, save Minnesota and the eastern seaboard. But they don’t want to relinquish their power. Their goal is
power. She is called to an emergency in the terminal: the signal system has broken down. She arranges to have
individual men work signals by hand with lanterns and runners deliver written orders to them, like when the
terminal was first built. She calls the men together to tell them this - and sees among them John Galt. She thinks
of the terminals and their meaning to her and Galt and his meaning to her. She walks into the abandoned tunnels
wanting him to follow. He follows and they make love. Afterwards, he talks of his ten years - and she tells him
of her love for him. He knows about Hank Rearden. It was hard at first, then he went to have a look at HR. He
saw a confident, competent man - the image of everything Galt wanted to be and should have been - but a man
paying a horrible price for his achievement, the man who was the symbol of his battle. “Dagny, it’s not that I
don’t suffer, it’s that I know the unimportance of suffering. I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not
to be accepted as part of one’s soul and as a permanent scar across one’s view of existence.” Galt realizes the
possible danger to himself of Dagny knowing his identity.

Ch. VI The Concerto of Deliverance (963)

(1) Unrest has been created at Rearden’s mills and his bank account has been attached. He is told it was a mistake
which would be rectified in a few days. He is invited to a meeting with the Washington boys so they could
“protect him”. They ask for a hearing and he agrees to come. His mother calls him on the morning of November
4th. He goes to see her in the afternoon; they are concerned to ensure their (financial) support if something were
to happen to him. He discovers fully and finally their evil and the very sense of justice by which they had held
him is turned against them. They want to make him let them devour the last of him in the name of mercy,
forgiveness and brother-cannibal-love. “We want to live,” they say. “Why no - I don’t think you do. If you did,
you would have known how to value me.” Lillian tells him of sleeping with Taggart. Lillian, he realizes, had
chosen him for his best but in order to destroy it. She sought to attach his self-esteem in order to destroy him. He
looks at her with the equivalent of - why tell it to me? He drives to New York. They tell him of a Steel
Unification Plan. He sees how this would destroy him - they consider him of invaluable importance and yet this -
why? What are they counting on? - On him, to “do something”. He had given them cause to believe that they
could get away with the irrational. It all rests on one tenet: He’ll do something. He leaves and drives to his
mills. He sees the mills and feels the fullest love he has ever felt for them - because he now knows why he loves
them, they are an achievement of his mind devoted to his enjoyment of existence, erected in a rational world to
deal with rational men. If those men had vanished, if that world was gone, if his mills had ceased to serve his
values, then they should be left to crumble - as an act of loyalty to their actual meaning. He sees a mob storming
the mills. He finds Non-Absolute at the bottom of a ravine, shot, for trying to stop them. They had infiltrated
their men, they need an excuse for the Steel Unification Plan, and a staged riot would do it. Non-Absolute
realizes the absolutes, the morality, and the meaning he never had. Tony dies - and Rearden feels love for him
and a desire to kill, a desire directed not at the mindless but at the boy’s teachers who had delivered him disarmed
to the thug’s gun - and the soft, safe assassins of the college classrooms who, incompetent to answer the queries of
a quest for reason, took pleasure in crippling the young minds entrusted to their care. He goes to the mills, is
clubbed, and wakes up to discover that the mills were saved by the men organized by a furnace foreman, the man
who saved his life by shooting an attacker - Francisco D’Anconia.

Ch. VII “This is John Galt Speaking” (1000)

(1) Rearden has vanished. Things are collapsing. Dagny receives a note, “I have met him. I don’t blame you.
H.R.” Mr. Thompson is to report on the world crisis. Dagny is invited to a “conference” at the studio. But all the
radio channels are jammed. The hand of the clock reaches the dot of 8:00 PM. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr.
Thompson will not speak to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the
world crisis. That is what you are going to hear.”
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[For an outline summary of Galt’s speech, with review questions, see Handout to be distributed in class.]

Ch. VIII The Egoist (1070)

(1) Thompson and friends discuss the speech. Dagny tells them, “You want to live, don’t you?...Get out of the
way.” Stadler wants them to kill Galt when the find him, but Thompson says he will make a deal with him - Galt
knows what to do to solve their problems and everyone is open to a deal.
(2) Eddie tells Dagny of his encounters with the worker. Dagny still thinks the looters will accept reason, since
they still value their lives. “Do they?”, says Eddie.
(3) There are effects of the speech all over the country. More men quit. The government broadcasts for Galt.
Dagny tells them to start decontrolling.
(4) At 4 AM one morning, Dagny goes to visit Galt - she must be sure he is still alive. She finds him, sees his
apartment and his laboratory. He tells her the danger of her visit and that he will kill himself if they try to torture
her - and “it will not be a self-sacrifice”. He tells her to pretend she is turning him in and to accept the reward.
Galt says that this way he will be the pawn in the demonstration that will convince her of their true nature. The
men following Dagny knock on the door. Dagny turns Galt in to them.
(5) They lock Galt in the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. Galt tells Thompson he is open to a deal, but that Thompson has
nothing to offer him. Thompson wants him to be Economic Dictator of the country. Thompson offers him “a
cool, neat billion dollars” - “which I’ll have to produce for you to give it to me”. Thompson can offer him only
his life - and it’s not his to offer.
(6) The others try to speak to him, they are afraid to do so again. Ferris wants to use force. Galt wants to see
Stadler. Eddie leaves to check out the line. Stadler cries that he didn’t bring Galt to this, that one can’t live by
logic - and that Galt is the man who has to be destroyed.
(7) They bring him to the TV station to state his “John Galt Plan”. He gets up, exposes the gun on him, and says,
“Get the hell out of my way.”

Ch. IX The Generator (1126)

(1) Stadler drives to Project X to take it over, knowing that it was all that was left. Fighting with his intellectual
heirs, the thugs, the thing goes off and kills everything for a radius of 100 miles, destroying the Taggart bridge.
(2) Dagny hears their plan to torture Galt and phones Francisco. She realizes, after all, that they want Galt to die,
knowing that they too will die as a result. She plans to help save Galt. Having packed, she returns to her office.
She is told that the Taggart Bridge has been blown up. She rushes to pick up the phone - then puts it back. She is
now on strike. She meets Francisco and takes the oath. [Students: Note what it took, what belief about the
looters had to change in Dagny’s mind, before she could go on strike. That will explain why she stayed so long,
when all others had left. Re-read summary of ch. 8, sequences (1) and (2) just above, then go back to the novel
and read the exchange between D. and Hugh Akston in the valley when she is explaining why she must go back,
noting what he says to her - Part III, near the end of ch. II. Compare the realization that leads Rearden to go on
strike in the summary of ch. VI.]
(3) They are torturing Galt when the generator breaks down. Galt tells them how to fix it - the mechanic runs out
in horror. Taggart screams for more torture and realizes that the motive of his life has been not to live but to
destroy the greatness of men who were masters of reality. He collapses.

Ch. X In the Name of the Best within Us (1147)

(1) Francisco, Rearden, Ragnar, and Dagny break into the SSI and rescue Galt. flying back to the valley, they see
the lights of New York go out. The goal of the strike has been accomplished.
(2) The train Eddie Willers is traveling on has broken down and no one can fix it. All the others leave on a
covered wagon - Eddie will not regress to the pre-railroad past. Remembering what he told Dagny year ago, that
Atlas Shrugged
Plot Outline
Page 15

he wanted to reach for “the best within us - not business and earning a living”, He realizes that that is the best
within us - “business and earning a living and that in man which makes it possible”.
(3) Richard Halley is playing his concerto, Midas Mulligan is making plans for a series of investments, Kay
Ludlow is studying makeup techniques, Ragnar is reading Aristotle - on the law of non-contradiction, the
fundamental law of reason and logic, Judge Narragansett is adding an amendment to the Constitution: “Congress
shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade”, Francisco is contemplating the building of his
new smelter, Rearden is making plans - and Dagny and Galt walk through the mountains to the highest accessible
ledge.

‘The road is cleared,’ said Galt. ‘We are going back to

the world.’
He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced
in space the sign of the dollar.

THE END