List of Atlas Shrugged characters

This is a list of characters in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged.

Major characters

The following are major characters from the novel.

Protagonists

Dagny Taggart

Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart in the 2011 film.

Dagny Taggart is the protagonist of the novel. She is Vice-President in Charge of Operations for Taggart Transcontinental, under her brother, James Taggart. However, due to James' incompetence, it is Dagny who is responsible for all the workings of the railroad.

Dagny has three romantic relationships, each with a man of ability: Francisco d'Anconia, Hank Rearden, and John Galt. Galt marks the pinnacle of everything Dagny seeks in the world and is the kind of man alluded to in her youth when she imagines a man standing off in the distance, at the end of a great set of railroad tracks and all her struggles.

The essential drama of Dagny's character is her struggle to reconcile the life she lives and the railroad which she loves with the moral code of those who wish to destroy it. She believes these destroyers simply want to heap burdens upon her for the sake of others, which she has the ability to carry. Like Hank, she believes they want to live, but are too stupid and incompetent to realize how their duties and altruistic projects impede that goal. It is not until she sees the man most important to her in the world - John Galt - strapped to a torture machine, about to be killed by the looters (who recognize, too, that he is the only man who can save them from economic collapse), that she realizes that the moral code of the looters is one of death: they recognize what is good and necessary for life, but wish to destroy it anyway.

She is a typical Randian heroine, similar to Dominique Francon (The Fountainhead) or Kira Argounova (We the Living).

Francisco d'Anconia

Francisco d'Anconia is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged, and owner by inheritance of the world's largest copper mining empire. He is a childhood friend, and the first love, of Dagny Taggart.

A child prodigy of exceptional talents, Francisco was dubbed the "climax" of the d'Anconia line, an already prestigious family of skilled industrialists. He attended Patrick Henry University and was a classmate of John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjöld and student of both Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler. He began working at a young age, while still in school, proving that he could have made a successful career on his own merits without the aid of his family's wealth and power.

Francisco is one of the strikers and is slowly destroying the d'Anconia empire to put it out of the raiders' reach. His actions were designed both to "trap" looters into relying upon his worthless ventures in order to disrupt their schemes and to try to show the inevitable consequences of looting. He adopted the persona of a worthless playboy, by which he is known to the world, as an effective cover. However, he is forced to give up Dagny, knowing that she would not be ready to join the strikers. He remains deeply in love with her throughout the book, while also being a good and loyal friend of her other two lovers, Hank Rearden and John Galt.

His full name is Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia.

John Galt

Main article: John Galt

The enigmatic John Galt is the primary male hero of Atlas Shrugged. He initially appears as an unnamed menial worker for Taggart Transcontinental, who often dines with Eddie Willers in the employee's cafeteria, and leads Eddie to reveal important information about Dagny Taggart and Taggart Transcontinental. Only Eddie's side of their conversations is given in the novel. Eddie tells him which suppliers and contractors Dagny is most dependent on; these men are consistently the next to disappear. Later in the novel, the reader discovers this worker's true identity.

Before working for Taggart Transcontinental, Galt worked as an engineer for the Twentieth Century Motor Company. While there, he invented his generator that produces electricity from static electricity in the environment. His Prototype may or may not have been completed when he left due to the management deciding on a communistic pay system. This Prototype was found by Dagny when she and Hank Rearden made a trip to the long-closed Twentieth Century Motor factory. Dagny would hire Quenten Daniels to try to figure out how the machine worked.

Galt would take over the radio airwaves during Mr. Thompson's much heralded speech at the end of the book and give his long soliloquy.

Henry "Hank" Rearden

Henry (also known as "Hank") is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged. Like many of Rand's capitalist characters, he is a self-made man. He owns the most important steel company in the United States. He invents Rearden Metal, an alloy stronger than steel (with similar properties to stainless steel). He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Lillian, his brother Philip, and his elderly mother, all of whom he supports.

Hank Rearden knows something is wrong with the world but he is unable to define the problem. His friend, Francisco d'Anconia, helps him understand and by this mechanism the reader is also prepared to understand the secret when it is revealed explicitly in Galt's Speech. Rearden also serves to illustrate Rand's theory of sex. Lillian Rearden cannot appreciate Hank Rearden's virtues, and she is portrayed as being disgusted by sex. Dagny Taggart clearly does appreciate Rearden's virtues, and this appreciation evolves into sexual desire. Rearden is torn because he accepts the premises of the traditional view of sex as a lower instinct, but he responds sexually to Dagny, who represents his highest values. Rearden struggles to resolve this internal conflict, and in doing so, illustrates Rand's sexual theory.

Eddie Willers

Edwin "Eddie" Willers is the Special Assistant to the Vice-President in Charge of Operations at Taggart Transcontinental. He grew up with Dagny Taggart. His father and grandfather worked for the Taggarts, and he followed in their footsteps. He is completely loyal to Dagny and to Taggart Transcontinental. He is also secretly in love with Dagny. Willers is generally assumed to represent the common man: someone who does not possess the Promethean creative ability of The Strikers, but matches them in moral courage and is capable of appreciating and making use of their creations. He sticks it out with the railway to the bitter end, even when the old world is obviously collapsing and Dagny has shifted her attention and loyalty to saving the captive Galt. In the end, he stays with the broken-down Comet in the middle of the desert, like a captain going down with his ship. It is unclear whether or not the strikers or anyone else will return to save him.

Ragnar Danneskjöld

One of the original strikers, he is now world famous as a pirate. Ragnar attended Patrick Henry University and became friends with John Galt and Francisco d'Anconia while studying under Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler. Danneskjöld seizes relief ships that are being sent from the United States to The People's States of Europe. As the novel progresses, Danneskjöld begins to become active in American waters. Danneskjöld's action is to restore to other creative people the money, in gold, which was unjustly taken away from them—specifically, their income tax payments. He explains this is not altruism; his motivation is to ensure that once those espousing Galt's philosophy are restored to their rightful place in society, they will have enough capital to rebuild the world.

Kept in the background for much of the book, Danneskjöld makes a personal appearance when he risks his life to meet Hank Rearden in the night and hand him a bar of gold as an "advance payment" to encourage Rearden to persevere in his increasingly difficult situation. Danneskjöld is married to the actress Kay Ludlow; their relationship is kept hidden from the outside world, which only knows of Ludlow as a film star who retired and dropped out of sight. It is mentioned that some of the strikers have strong reservations about his way of "conducting the common struggle."

According to Barbara Branden, who was closely associated with Rand at the time the book was written, there were sections written describing Danneskjöld's adventures at sea, which were cut from the final published text. In a 1974 comment at a lecture, Ayn Rand admitted that Danneskjöld's name was a tribute to Victor Hugo. The hero of Hugo's novel, Hans of Iceland, becomes the first of the Counts of Danneskjöld. In the published book, Danneskjöld is always seen through the eyes of others (Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden), except for a brief paragraph in the very last chapter.

Antagonists

James Taggart

The President of Taggart Transcontinental and the book's most important antagonist. Taggart is an expert influence peddler who is, however, incapable of making operational decisions on his own. He relies on his sister, Dagny Taggart, to actually run the railroad, but nonetheless opposes her in almost every endeavor. In a sense, he is the antithesis of Dagny.

As the novel progresses, the moral philosophy of the looters is revealed: it is a code of stagnation. The goal of this code is to not exist, to not move forward, to become a zero. Taggart struggles to remain unaware that this is his goal. He maintains his pretense that he wants to live, and becomes horrified whenever his mind starts to grasp the truth about himself. This contradiction leads to the recurring absurdity of his life: the desire to destroy those on whom his life depends, and the horror that he will succeed at this. In the final chapters of the novel, he suffers a complete mental breakdown upon realizing that he can no longer deceive himself in this respect.

• ====Lillian Rearden====
• ====Dr. Floyd Ferris====
• ====Dr. Robert Stadler====
• ====Wesley Mouch====
• ==Secondary characters==
• *'''Calvin Atwood''' is owner of Atwood Light and Power Company and joins Galt's strike.
• *'''Mayor Bascom''' is the mayor of Rome, Wisconsin, who reveals part of the history of the Twentieth Century Motor Company.
• *'''Bill Brent''' is the chief dispatcher for the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental, who tries to prevent the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
• *'''Dr. Blodgett''' is the scientist who pulls the lever to demonstrate Project X.
• *'''Orren Boyle''' is the head of Associated Steel antithesis of Hank Rearden and a friend of James Taggart. He is an investor in the San Sebastián Mines. He disappears from the story after having a nervous breakdown.
• *'''Laura Bradford''' is an actress and Kip Chalmers's mistress.
• *'''Ken Danagger''' owns Danagger Coal in Pennsylvania. He helps Hank Rearden illegally make Rearden Metal, then later decides to quit and join Galt's strike moments before Dagny arrives to try to persuade him otherwise.
• *'''Lawrence Hammond''' runs Hammond Cars in Colorado, one of the few companies in existence that still produces top-quality vehicles. He eventually quits and joins the strike.
• *'''Mrs. William Hastings''' is the widow of the chief engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Her husband quit shortly after Galt did and joined the strike some years later. Her lead allows Dagny to find Hugh Akston.
• *'''Dr. Thomas Hendricks''' is a famous brain surgeon who developed a new method of preventing strokes. He joined Galt's strike when the American medical system was put under government control.
• *'''Tinky Holloway''' is one of the "looters" and is frequently referred to and quoted by other characters in the story, but he has only has one major appearance: during the Washington meeting with Hank Rearden.
• *'''Gwen Ives''' is Hank Rearden's secretary.
• *'''Eugene Lawson''' heads the Community Bank of Madison, then gets a job with the government when it his bank goes bankrupt. One of the looter's cabal, he is a collectivist who abhors production and money-making.
• *'''Clifton Locey''' is a friend of Jim Taggart who takes the position of vice-president of operation when Dagny Taggart quits.
• *'''Pat Logan''' is the engineer on the first run of the John Galt Line. He later strikes.
• *'''Kay Ludlow''' is a beautiful actress and the wife of Ragnar Danneskjöld.
• *'''Dave Mitchum''' is a state-hired superintendent of the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental. He is partially responsible for the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
• *'''Chick Morrison''' holds the position of "Morale Conditioner" in the government. He quits when society begins to collapse and flees to a stronghold in Tennessee. His fellow looters consider it unlikely that he will survive.
• *'''Betty Pope''' is a wealthy socialite who is having a meaningless sexual affair with James Taggart. She is deliberately crude in a way that casts ridicule on her high social position.
• *'''Dr. Potter''' holds some undefined position with the State Science Institute. He is sent to try to obtain the rights to Rearden Metal.
• *'''Dwight Sanders''' owns Sanders Aircraft, a producer of high-quality airplanes, and joins the strike.
• *'''Andrew Stockton''' runs the Stockton Foundry in Stockton, Colorado. When he joins the strike, he opens a foundry in Galt's Gulch.
• *'''Lester Tuck''' is the press agent for Kip Chalmers.
• ==Notes==
• ==References==