Setting
Atlas Shrugged written by Ayn Rand, is classic book. When read, the reader pictures the scenes as they read them. It is a fictional book and is written about a time when the major businesses and railroads such as Taggart Transcontinental are plagued by a communistic government. It is set in the home of the free America. The main character is a vice president in the railroad business. Her name is Dagny Taggart. She has a brother who stole the praise and adoration from her accomplishments; his name is James Taggart. A problem arose with one of the Taggart Transcontinental best lines, the Rio Norte Line. The line had to get a new track because there had been many wrecks on it. This book was recommended to me by my father, a bookaholic. He said that this was one of his favorite books and even thought it was a tough and long read it was his favorite book. Within the first hundred pages, I too had fallen in love with Ayn Rand’s way of writing and the story line. It has the perfect set up, there was a problem and the characters had to create a solution. The problem had been the Rio Norte Line’s unstable track, and of course, the government was trying to stop their income and profits. I wanted to help the railroad in the fight against this atrocity. This book would have drastically changed if it were put in a different era or place. After her great accomplishment she thought “…from an era when people gathered to greet the first run of a train…that age…was gone; generations passed…”(243). Even though people had stopped coming to see the trains run people came to see her. That is why this time was perfect. It was because it was after every one stopped having that enthusiastic attitude towards the trains. This is why Dagny’s accomplishment better than it would have been if that optimistic attitude were still around.
