Recently I have started to really notice how much love is in Ayn Rand's works and how heartfelt it is. So many people out there think Ayn Rand would have no place for feelings or emotion in a series of novels based on Rational self-interest. However, if people actually read them they would see they are filled with love stories between heroic men and women. She was a lover of love and it shows in her work.
Take for example "The Fountainhead," with the love story between Howard Roarke and Dominique. (PS: Feminists no, their first sex scene is not rape it is just very rough.). It is a very beautiful story between two people whom love each other very much. This sort of theme would continue into "Atlas Shrugged."
For within Atlas you have two very different, but, also similarly beautiful love stories. One between Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden. With the other one coming in Part III between Dagny and John Galt. Within Parts 1 and 2 of Atlas you have Dagny seeing and loving Hank Rearden as Ayn would say "body and mind, body and soul." Whereas his wife clearly does not love him and is using him for his riches.
In one major telling scene at Hank's party his own wife considers his creation of his metal to be silly and to be worthless to her. Whereas Dagny loves the metal bracelet; she sees his soul/mind and body in the creation he made. It was his magnificent mind/soul made manifest in reality. She trades her designer necklace for Hank's bracelet of Rearden metal.
She sees his true beauty and sees him as a whole/full entity a full being. Mind/Soul and body being one and not cut off from one another. A beautifully integrated being whom she admires, respects and is also highly attracted to. Whereas his wife frankly sees a honey bank to get off stuff off of like a leach and does not at all think about the happiness of her own Husband.
This theme can be seen throughout their friendship and eventual romance/sexual encounters. It is very clear that Dagny sees Hank for the real being he is and that is whom she loves. It is not his body; as well described and defined it is. It is his integration both his body and soul. She wants eventually his body because she has experienced his soul and sees the whole. It is a beautiful story it really is.
However, their story goes separate ways when she meets John Galt. Whom has many characteristics of Hank, but, even more so. Plus, he does not have something Hank does have. He does not have a wife that refuses to give him the divorce he wants to be with Dagny. So, when they meet in Part III when she lands in Galt's Gulch there is no obstacles to them being able to fall in love.
However, instead the conflict is between whether to stay and let Taggert Continental collapse or not. This is the conflict in their relationship. Does she stay with him in his little valley or does she go back and meet her commitment not to a lover, but, to her business. In a sense she is now in the position Hank was for a time and in his shoes so to speak.
Of course, she ends up going back, but, not alone. John Galt goes to New York with her and the end portion of the novel commences. In those later chapters John Galt reveals just how much Dagny means to her. At one point saying if he were to find out she was harmed he would not want to live. He would kill himself and surrender to the State if it saved Dagny from being killed slowly through torture.
While this to me is an extreme; suicide over a lover is a No No. Suicide is never the answer, ever. Within the confines of a fictional world it is a beautiful statement. He tells her that he would have no values to live for as all his values are anchored now to them as she is his ultimate value next to himself. A beautiful statement, but, again to take it to such an extreme in real life would be insane to say the least.
Most people do not realize how much love is in Ayn Rand's books. Both her fiction and her non-fiction works are filled with a love of life and how about happiness love really is. Of course, it is all fiction and these characters are meant to be ideal and perfect men, and, women. They are unblemished and their flaws are easily looked over because of how heroic they are. Love is in the air in Ayn Rand's mind.
