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Part 1, Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Atlas Shrugged, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Morality of Self-Interest
The Value of Productive Work
The Individual vs. the Collective
Government Power and Corruption
The Corruption of Language
Despair in the Absence of Purpose
Summary
Analysis
Dagny returns to New York after visiting United Locomotive Works in New Jersey, where she failed to get straight answers about major delays in producing new Diesel engines. She found the factory full of rusting equipment and indifferent workers, which filled her with anger and frustration. Back at her office, Eddie is waiting with urgent news: McNamara, their most reliable contractor, has unexpectedly quit and closed his business. He gave no reason. Dagny is stunned, but she tells Eddie they will find someone else.
Dagny’s failed visit to United Locomotive Works captures the novel’s growing atmosphere of paralysis. The factory’s rusting equipment and silent workers offer a visual echo of the hollow oak tree on the Taggart Estate. Meanwhile, McNamara’s sudden exit adds to the pattern of capable people disappearing without explanation. Dagny’s quick response shows her ability to persist, but the ground beneath her is becoming less stable with each vanishing ally.
Themes
That night, Dagny walks alone through the city. Everything she sees makes her feel empty—the lights, the clubs, the art, the novels and films around her all seem cheap, lifeless, and hollow. She passes store windows and movie posters and feels like the world is collapsing under a layer of mediocrity. In her apartment high above the city, she puts on Richard Halley’s Fourth Concerto and lets herself sink into the music. The music gives her a fleeting sense of strength. She remembers that Halley retired suddenly at the peak of his fame, and no one ever learned why.
Dagny’s alienation is not just from the people around her, but from the culture itself. The lifeless novels, films, and art suggest a civilization in retreat from excellence. Halley’s music remains one of the few things that still carries real meaning, reinforcing art’s role as a surviving fragment of human clarity. Halley’s mysterious withdrawal parallels McNamara’s: the most capable are retreating, and no one knows why.
Themes
While in her apartment, Dagny reads a newspaper article announcing that Francisco d’Anconia has arrived in New York. Francisco was Dagny’s first love and once seemed destined for greatness, but now the public sees him as a spoiled, careless playboy. She reads about a scandal linking him to a high-profile divorce and feels sick at the man he has become.
Francisco’s return introduces a personal wound to Dagny’s growing sense of cultural collapse. The man she once saw as a symbol of brilliance now seems complicit in the mediocrity surrounding her. That dissonance—between past potential and present failure—deepens her disillusionment. Francisco’s decline from visionary to scandal magnet is part of a recurring anxiety: that even the best people may surrender to the forces corroding the world.
Themes
Elsewhere, James wakes up in his apartment, sluggish and irritable after spending the night with Betty Pope, a fashionable socialite. Betty mocks him and makes fun of his railroad, especially Dagny’s role in it. James smugly tells her that he plans to humiliate Dagny at the board meeting later that day. But before he can leave, he gets a panicked phone call from his political contact in Mexico: the government has just nationalized the San Sebastian Mines and the Mexican rail line. The entire investment is lost. At the board meeting, James lies. He claims credit for moving equipment out of Mexico—something Dagny actually did—and announces the losses are minor. He shifts the blame to others and fires a scapegoat to protect himself.
James’s morning with Betty Pope confirms his shallowness. While Dagny endures sleepless nights holding a decaying empire together, James drifts through indulgence and cruelty. His glee at the thought of humiliating Dagny shows that power, for him, is personal, not purposeful. The nationalization of the San Sebastian venture is the first concrete proof of government overreach destroying private investment. James responds not by reckoning with his error but by lying, blaming others, and claiming Dagny’s foresight as his own.
Themes
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Soon after, the United States government passes a new regulation: “the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule.” It is designed to eliminate competition between railroads for the public good, but in practice it forces smaller, efficient railroads to shut down. Its main target is Dan Conway’s Phoenix-Durango line, which has been outperforming Taggart Transcontinental in Colorado. Most railroad executives secretly hate the rule, but they pass it anyway out of fear and resignation. James quietly celebrates with Boyle, thinking they have destroyed a rival.
The Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule is the clearest expression yet of the novel’s moral inversion. Under the guise of fairness, it rewards stagnation and punishes excellence. Its language of collective good disguises the real motive: to eliminate those who succeed on their own. The rule’s passage shows how fear drives people to abandon principle—especially when standing up means isolation. James and Boyle’s private celebration mirrors their earlier rooftop scheming: empty people crowing over the ruins they help create. They cannot build, so they destroy.
Themes
Dagny is furious when she learns about the vote. She rushes to Conway’s office and begs him to fight the ruling. But Conway, tired and defeated, refuses. He says he has always followed the rules and will not go against the majority now. Even though he knows it is unjust, he will not fight it. Dagny cannot accept this. She tells him that surrendering like this destroys the very thing he built. Conway, confused and heartbroken, says he doesn’t know what’s right anymore. He plans to retire and spend the rest of his life fishing.
Conway’s resignation is tragic because it comes not from cowardice, but confusion. His moral compass has eroded in a world that rewards surrender and punishes integrity. Dagny’s plea to resist falls on ears too worn down by years of compromise. Her frustration reflects the central tension of the novel: what happens when good people refuse to fight? Conway’s decision leaves Dagny as the last barrier between Colorado’s industries and collapse.
Themes
With Conway out, Dagny realizes that Colorado’s industries now depend entirely on her. Ellis Wyatt, who runs the state’s booming oil fields, storms into her office and demands answers. He warns her not to exploit him like the others have, or he will burn his entire business to the ground. Dagny calmly promises him the trains he needs.
Wyatt’s fury breaks the usual pattern of passive despair. He represents a different response to corruption: not withdrawal, but the threat of self-destruction. His vow to burn his wells if exploited positions him as a man unwilling to be sacrificed.
Themes
With only nine months before Conway’s line shuts down, Dagny contacts Hank Rearden and asks for faster delivery of his rails. Hank agrees, but only at a higher price. Dagny accepts immediately. The two talk excitedly about the future of Rearden Metal—not just for railroads, but for planes, wires, bridges, and everyday use. They both feel energized, as if they are building a new world from scratch.
Dagny and Hank’s deal reaffirms the moral bond forming between them, which is built on competence, directness, and shared risk. Unlike James’s backroom plotting, their negotiation is transparent and fair. Hank’s higher price is not exploitation but value recognition, and Dagny accepts without hesitation.
Themes
Later, at the mill, Dagny and Hank watch the first shipment of Rearden Metal rails being loaded onto Taggart cars. Standing beside each other, they share a quiet moment of pride. Hank tells Dagny that people like them are the ones who keep the world moving, no matter how irrational it becomes. They both know the risks involved—but they also know they are not going to stop.
The image of Dagny and Hank watching the first rails being loaded offers a rare moment of affirmation. It recalls Hank’s silent triumph during his first pour of Rearden Metal, but now there is someone to share it with. Their mutual pride resists the tide of destruction around them. Hank’s statement—that they are the ones who keep the world moving—is not self-congratulation, but recognition of reality.
Themes
