Atlas Shrugged: 33-48

Pages 33-48

·         The chapter is called ‘The Chain,’ and while on the obvious level it’s referring to the chain that Henry had made for his bitch wife, it is about the chain keeping Henry tied to all these horrible, horrible people.

·         Eh, and why don’t we just get down into it? In this chapter we meet Lillian Rearden, the unnamed Mother Rearden, Henry’s brother Phillip, and his friend Paul Larkin. And, amazingly enough, there is not a single redeeming quality to be found between them, no matter how hard Henry tries to convince himself that they exist.

Characterizations like these are originally where my complaints about Ayn Rand lacking subtlety came from in the first place. It was fine in The Fountainhead when Ellsworth Toohey was written as a flat, evil character with nothing at all to write down in the ‘positive’ column. Smug, evil bastards like that work, though, in small doses. In populating Atlas Shrugged, Rand is populating not just a city, but an entire world, and she still has the same “I don’t have time for you people not to get my point” attitude about the whole thing. And so…terrible, terrible people are born.

·         Let’s take Lillian Rearden first. ‘Lillian’ is from ‘lily,’ the flower, and as a flower it usually stands for purity and beauty. Which, just, GAHHHH. I’m sorry, it’s going to be REALLY hard for me to talk rationally about ANY of these people. And I’m trying, because I recognize this to be more about emotional manipulation than characterization on Rand’s part, but you have to give credit to the woman, she can create some horrible people.

Lillian offers nothing but contempt for her husband. So far, I’m not even sure why she married in the first place, and I can’t remember if we’re ever offered a reason. She belittles her husband in front of the rest of their family, she’s disappointed when she’s unable to watch him squirm at forgetting their wedding anniversary, and she treats his gift to her like it’s bird shit on toast. Ohhh, that gift.

·         Henry has just poured Rearden Metal for the first time. And in honor of that, the very first of that metal was used to create the titular chain, bracelet sized, made especially for his wife. And what little we know of Henry Rearden so far shows us readers that this is, perhaps, the most romantic and expressive thing Hank could do for anyone. He has dedicated his life to making this metal that works better than anything else that has come before it. It is his achievement, something he made, something he can be proud of, something he can stand behind. And to take something like that and give it to his wife is comparing the two, isn’t it? The two most important things to Henry Rearden, joined together.

When I read this in high school, it was the very first thing I correctly predicted before it happened. I knew, before we had even met Lillian, before we got any insight into her character, that she would hate it. But not only would she hate, she would portray the creation and the giving of the gift as being a symptom of some shortcoming or deficiency of Henry’s. That he was an idiot to have given it to her, selfish somehow, a man who doesn’t understand his wife, who doesn’t understand love, and that she would mock him and make a big show of ‘understanding’ but ultimately disregard the gift and not even come close to understanding what it meant to the man. And then it happened, and it was worse than I could have imagined:

“Lillian Rearden picked it up, hooked on the tips of two straight fingers, and raised it into the light. The links were heavy, crudely made, the shining metal had an odd tinge, it was greenish blue.

‘What’s that?” she asked.

‘The first thing made from the first heat of the first order of Rearden Metal.’

‘You mean,’ she said, ‘it’s as fully valuable as a piece of railroad rails?’” (p41-42).

YES, you shrew, and if you’ve been married to the man, you should know exactly how valuable that is! And of course she does. I’d say it’s impossible for this woman to not understand the man she married – he’s not entirely as subtle about his feelings as he’d believe – and that this is all part of some screw-over game she’s been playing with him for years? Why? I don’t know yet. In the end, she calls it “charming” and, most importantly, doesn’t put it on.

·         The rest of his family is not much better. His mother, so far unnamed, has chosen to live with him despite given the chance to live anywhere she wants, and spends every breath hurling emotional abuse at Henry, something we can conclude has been going on since the kid was old enough to play with Tinker Toys.

·         His brother, Philip (‘Philip,’ by the by, means ‘horse lover.’ Either Rand didn’t bother to give Philip a name that meant anything, or she REALLY hated this character), sets up a con to get a good donation out of Henry for whatever charity he’s promoting (it seriously does not matter) and then looks absolutely OFFENDED when Henry expects him to be happy about it. Philip is one of Mallory’s Zombies, working so hard for his fellow man and denying that he does anything for his sense of self that there is just nothing there anymore. He couldn’t be happy if he tried.

·         Paul Larkin is probably the least offensive of the lot, which is like picking out the least poisonous asp. ‘Paul’ means ‘small,’ and ‘Larkin’ means ‘rough and fierce,’ which, I mean, I can’t even see Paul being fierce in that way Tyra Banks is constantly using it. He’s also here as the night’s foreshadowing, as he brings up Henry’s ‘man in Washington’ but doesn’t give up why he’s doing it. My guess – and it’s an honest guess, I don’t remember from the book – but I think it’s talk of nationalizing Rearden Steel, like earlier we saw Mexico planning to nationalize one of Taggart Transcontinental’s lines.

·         Unfortunately, the worst person in the room for Henry is Henry. You know how, you break up with someone, and all your friends do that dutiful thing and say you were too good for him/her? Well, Henry is TOO GOOD for these people. During the entire scene he is CONSTANTLY justifying the actions of these people. His abusive mother chose to live with him, so that proves there must be some love in the relationship. Philip has never had a clear view of what he wants to do with himself so it’s his brotherly duty to help him figure it out. And Lillian was not attempting to screw him over with the trick with his wedding anniversary; she was merely throwing herself upon his mercy. Time and time again he justifies their actions as loving or affectionate, just ‘in their own way.’ And it isn’t until Henry figures out that he’s just lying to himself that he can extricate himself from this horrendous situation, hopefully with lots of explosives.

·         The worst thing to happen to Henry in this scene is Lillian’s reaction to the chain, but coming in at a close second is the reaction to his announcement that he’s finally poured and created Rearden Metal:

“There was a moment of silence. Then Philip said, ‘Well, that’s nice’” (p41).

Christ, Phil. Why don’t you just kick him in the ghoulies while you’re at it, huh? (Although it remind me of this. Hee.)

·         The whole night was not what Rearden expected at all, which someone makes it that much worse. Obviously, these aren’t new behaviors suddenly learned by his family. Obviously, they’ve been doing this for years, and they’ve shaped him into this little ball of helpless frustration that he can’t even vent, because then the nibblers will pounce. And yet, on his way home, he actually feels “certain that every living being wished him well tonight” (p37). We already know this to be untrue, as passengers on a train passing by Rearden Steel, people who don’t even know him or what he’s accomplished, are composing the terrible things they’ll say about him and his ‘ego’ at the next chance they get. But to have that feeling and then walk into that pit of starving lions? Sure, he seems to realize the truth of the situation even before he walks into it, but he walks into it all the same.

·         Finally, there are two very basic ideas about science and progress poised against one another here. The first is from the beginning, in the description of Rearden Metal being poured:

“Two hundred tons of metal which was to be harder than steel, running liquid at a temperature of four thousand degrees, had the power to annihilate every wall of the structure and every one of the men who worked by the stream. But every inch of its course, every pound of its pressure and the content of every molecule within it, were controlled and made by a conscious intention that had worked upon it for ten years” (p34).

‘Why does man do anything?’ Why the fuck not? The above passage is the best and happiest answer to that question and just a prettier rewrite of that shorter answer. Because what else are we going to do? Progress. Science. Physics. Men in white coats figuring shit out. And doing it not because it’ll help everybody – at least not completely. Maybe that’s in there. Maybe that’s a percentage. But it’s also part quest for knowledge, part domination of a world that was once scary, and part being fucking awesome and making sure everyone knows it.

As an aside, I’ve never agreed with people who think knowing the science behind something takes the amazing out of it, or the people who think science is just out to defraud religion. First off, science is beautiful. Second off, everything we are surrounded by, everything we are, is actually made up of tinier and tinier stuff until the tiniest stuff can hardly be seen by a microscope, and that’s not amazing? Or the fact that we know that now? That’s not amazing?! Dark matter, gravitational laws, hurricanes, evolution…fucking evolution. Is that not the craziest thing you have ever heard? How is that not the most amazing answer to ‘where did we come from?’ And even more amazing is that we understand things like this now. That people make their livings breaking these mysteries, and creating new things. Science rules, and it rules so hard I am sometimes very disappointed in myself that I can’t understand more of it unless it’s broken down into very simple terms on the Discovery Channel (“Now, pretend that the universe is this orange…”)

·         Now, our other science quote from this chapter:

“Larkin shrugged sadly.  ‘Why ask useless questions? How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? Who is John Galt?’” (p 45).

In order: average of 4267 meters; the exosphere ends around 600 miles up; fuck you, Paul. Now, I know you said useless and not unanswerable, but only someone who has no understanding of what the hell we have been doing as a species since we climbed down from trees would call questions like those ‘useless.’ I take back my assessment of Paul. Anyone who doesn’t understand the very basis of science is the most poisonous asp in all the animal kingdom.


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