Atlas Shrugged

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Who is John Galt?
John Galt is a protagonist character in the novel “Atlas Shrugged”. Even if the character is not recognized by name till the last third division of the play, he is a person whose identity needs to be known. Initially, John Galt seems to be anonymous menial worker for Taggart Transcontinental. In the play, it is often seen that Galt and Eddie Willers have dines in the employees’ cafeteria, and this influences Eddie to disclose vital information about Taggart Transcontinental and Dagny Taggart. Only Eddie’s perspective of their talks is presented in the play. Later in the play, readers are able to discover true identity of the worker (John Galt). This paper aims to investigate who is John Galt in the novel “Atlas Shrugged”.
As the plot of the novel unfolds, Galt is identified to be an inventor and a philosopher. Galt believes in the glory and power of human mind as well as the rights entitled by every human being to utilize her or his mind mainly for herself or himself. Galt is an individualist counterpoint and skeptical to the collectivist economic and social structure described in the play. Such a society is founded on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries, and is based on a culture which claims to encourage egalitarianism, but in the real sense embraces mediocrity. The play interprets the consequences of societal activities as impacts of socialistic idealism.
Before Galt works for Taggart Transcontinental, he served as an engineer working for the Twentieth Century Motor Company, which was a firm where he secretly led his invention to create a generator that utilizes electric energy from static electricity. However, he dumped his newly invented motor and also abandoned his employment when he became dissatisfied by the company’s payment system. Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart were the people who found the abandoned generator in the factory. Galt remains somebody who is concealed in the entire play. He conceals himself in a valley where he interacts with most great business leaders and skilled inventors under his leadership. The third division of the novel presents Galt’s broadcast speech that indicates the philosophy of objectivism embraced by the novel’s author.
Biography of John Galt
The play unfolds gradually with Galt (who is the son of a mechanic working in at a garage in Ohio) leaves home when he is 12 years old and starts college education at the Fictional Patrick Henry University at the age of 16. At the college, Galt meets Rangnar Danneskjold and Francisco d’Anconia, and the three become great friends. Galt majors in both philosophy and physics. After he graduated, Galt serves as an engineer working for the Twentieth Century Motor Company; a firm where he invents a new generator energized by ambient static electricity. According to what he needs and his ability, Galt decides not only to abandon working for the company, but also abandoned his motor at the company.
Based on the mainstream story of the novel, Galt is seen leading an organized strike secretly by collaborating with the world’s great innovative leaders as well as businessmen, artists and inventors so as to stop the operation of the world motor and to influence the downfall of the bureaucratic society. After he abandoned Twentieth Century Motor Company, Galt starts working for the Taggart Transcontinental railroad as a menial laborer, a position that enables him to travel to reach key personalities who he wants to recruit by convincing them to join hands to push for the strike. The strike is not immediately disclosed within the play, though it forms the background of the play as a mystery event; something that protagonist Dagny Taggart is committed trying to know and disclose while Galt being her antagonist. Those who were recruited for strike have developed a secret enclave identified as the “Galt’s Gulch”, which is a hidden town in a Colorado mountain valley at Ouray, Colorado. Dagny eventually travels to the valley, and she falls in love relationship with Galt, though she declines to become part of the strike. Later, Dagny goes back to New York. Galt decides to give a prolonged speech, which justifies that he considers collectivism as something irrational and therefore he provides his own philosophy as a radical alternative to the society. Galt talks ill against collectivist culture; he sees such culture as evil. Galt justifies that people must be responsible for their own deeds, and he advocates that rational self-interest and voluntary association should replace irrationality of collectivism. By coincidence, in an effort to seek Galt after presenting his speech, Dagny gives order to her authorities to search for Galt and arrest him. Eventually, the authorities arrest Galt. Nevertheless, the strikers and Dagny save Galt by rescuing him as the government authorities plan to persecute him. After rescuing Galt from torture, they (the strikers, Galt and Da...