Dagny Taggart
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Dagny Taggart is the main character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. Dagny is Vice-President in Charge of Operations at Taggart Transcontinental. She is the female heroic character, the counterpart to John Galt, and her journey is the journey of the reader exploring and understanding Galt's philosophy. Those in the know understand that she is the one who really runs the railroad.
In the course of the novel, she forms romantic liaisons with three men of ability: Francisco d'Anconia; Hank Rearden; and John Galt, respectively. Galt is the one who, because of the sum total of his qualities, will become the ultimate choice of Dagny. However, she stays on good terms with the other two, even though she ends her sexual relationships with both of them. In the climactic scene near the end of the book, Dagny and her two former lovers, (with Ragnar Danneskjöld, whom she likes but was never romantically involved with), risk their lives to save her present lover. This implies that Rand's perception of egoism (as opposed to some popular interpretations of the term) does not necessarily imply narrow-minded sexual jealousy or a blind possessive feeling towards another person.
In the same scene, Dagny Taggart is also shown as capable of shooting a man to death "calmy and impersonally" - to be, sure, under extreme circumstances, i.e. that the man is a guard blocking her way to where her beloved was being tortured.
'Dagny Taggart' was also the name of the wife of Nathaniel Taggart, the founder of Taggart Transcontinental and Dagny's idol.
Dagny appears in sections 112, 113, 114, 132, 133, 141, 145, 146, 147, 148, 151, 152, and 161.
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[edit] Interpretation
[edit] Feminism
Feminists have long been divided in their attitudes to the character. She is manifestly a strong, assertive woman who seeks and succeeds in having a major career in business - an idea which was far more daring at the time of writing than at present. She is the one and only female business executive in her environment, all the many colleagues and rivals which she encounters throughout the long book being exclusively male. Being born into the rich and powerful Taggart family enabled her ascension to her position at the railroad and in society (inasmuch as she actually participated in societal functions), but she still had to work hard to achieve her intellectual and professional status and to become as wholly capable as she was; all previous Taggart women (including Dagny's 19th century namesake) had confined themselves to traditional female roles. [1]
Despite her running the railroad, her brother remains the figurehead, while she receives little to no credit from most of her colleagues. (There is a specific mention of the press attributing the success of the John Galt Line to James Taggart, who had done nothing but obstruct it, while Dagny's superhuman efforts are ignored).
As against the above, feminists have often criticised the description of Dagny Taggart's appearance at the Reardens' anniversary party: "…the diamond band on the wrist of her naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being chained." (It has been pointed out that this scene is, however, described from Lillian Rearden's point of view, not Ayn Rand's). Dagny, while otherwise invariably strong and assertive, seems, in some scenes, to have a submissive attitude to the men in her life. This is manifested both in Hank Rearden's ability to subdue and soften her with gifts and in sexual encounters in which the men (all three of them, in turn) use physical violence which Dagny seems to enjoy. Dagny's relationship with Rearden involves elements of bondage, with one scene in which she is described as enjoying his treating her as a slave "whose consent is not needed" when she is being undressed and intimately touched.
Her attitude toward sexual force is not as blatant as Dominique Francon's relationship with Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, described explicitly as "rape" by the character herself. Also subject to feminist criticism is Dagny's adoration of Galt and explicit acceptance of him as her superior - though, to be sure, similar attitudes are exhibited by male characters who are portrayed as otherwise quite strong and assertive.[2]
[edit] Character comparison
Unlike Hank Rearden's attitude to his brother Philip, Dagny never feels that she has a sense of loyalty imposed upon her by the fact of James Taggart's being her brother. The contrast between these two pairs of very unlike siblings clearly shows that, in Rand's opinion, Dagny's attitude was the correct one and Hank's was wrong - being a sibling is not in itself a reason to give a person something, if that person gives nothing in return.
Dagny shares many of the characteristics of Kira Argounova, the main character of Rand's first book We the Living, whose life was spent in the crushing struggle with the Soviet regime and who was finally killed in an attempt to escape the Soviet Union and get to America (and which Rand states explicitly was meant to represent herself, in character though not in specific biographical events). In a sense, Dagny is a more fortunate Kira, and actually gets a chance to do the kind of things of which Kira dreams. Dagny also shares some of the characteristics with Dominique Francon. Especially, her daring act of proudly revealing to the world her relationship with Rearden recalls Francon's similar revelation of a relationship with Roark in The Fountainhead.
[edit] Citations
- ^ The original 19th Century Dagny Taggart is mentioned as having on one occasion consented to serve as a "collateral" for a loan which her husband Natahniel desperately needed, from a banker "who despised Natahniel and admired Dagny's beauty"; since Natahniel succeeded in paying it back, his wife did not need to go through with her part. She clearly did not aspire to take part in running the railroad, as did her 20th Century descendant.
- ^ See [1], [2], [3], [4].
