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Part 3, Chapter 5
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
By late October, unrest is growing at Rearden Steel. The union demands a wage increase, but no one consults Hank about it. The Unification Board rejects the union’s demand—then quietly releases press stories blaming the company for starving its workers. Shortly after, Hank receives a notice from Washington that his assets have been frozen due to a tax discrepancy from three years earlier. His attorney is furious, but Hank tells him to do nothing. When a bureaucrat calls to apologize for the “clerical error,” Rearden understands it is a warning. Meanwhile, mysterious new workers appear at the mills, adding to the growing atmosphere of ease as they destroy property and attack foremen.
The escalating unrest at Rearden Steel emphasizes how quickly government manipulation can destabilize productive industries. Hank’s reaction—quietly understanding the implications rather than protesting openly—signals his awareness of how deeply compromised his position has become. The orchestrated presence of destructive workers shows a systematic dismantling of competence and productivity, clearly indicating that irrationality and violence have become sanctioned tools of political control.
Themes
Tinky Holloway, a Washington bureaucrat, contacts Hank and requests a meeting to resolve the issue. After hanging up, Holloway confers with Claude Slagenhop of the Friends of Global Progress, revealing that Philip Rearden, has been working with them. They are concerned Hank may vanish like the other industrialists and are looking for leverage to keep him in place. On November 4, Mrs. Rearden calls Hank to the house, claiming it is an emergency. When he arrives, he finds his mother, Philip, and Lillian waiting for him. His family is desperate for help, as the freezing of his assets has left them without funds.
Tinky Holloway’s behind-the-scenes plotting and Philip’s collaboration highlight how moral betrayal within families supports wider societal corruption. Hank’s family, seeking financial assistance, embodies the moral decay Rand criticizes: their appeals for compassion mask selfish entitlement and dependence. Hank’s awareness of their motives reinforces his own moral clarity and independence.
Themes
They plead for compassion, but Hank sees through their appeals. Mrs. Rearden cries that the world is collapsing and claims they cannot survive without him. Lillian argues that she betrayed him out of love, and Philip complains that Hank cannot disappear without money. Hank suddenly realizes that the freeze on his assets was part of a deliberate attempt to block his escape. When he tries to leave, Lillian attempts to provoke him by revealing she had sex with James. Unmoved, Hank calmly walks out. His cold indifference deflates her completely, leaving her grasping at her own sense of meaninglessness.
Lillian’s attempt to provoke Hank with her infidelity illustrates her desperation to regain power through emotional manipulation. Hank’s indifferent reaction strips away her sense of control, emphasizing his emotional liberation from those who exploit guilt and obligation. His calm departure confirms his total moral detachment from his family’s manipulative strategies, emphasizing his newfound clarity and self-assurance.
Themes
Day later, at a meeting in Washington, Hank faces Holloway, Mouch, Taggart, Ferris, and others. They ask him to advise them in exchange for the return of his property. Then they present their new proposal: the Steel Unification Plan. It will pool gross earnings from all steel companies and redistribute them based on the number of furnaces owned. Hank immediately sees the flaw—he will produce twice as much steel as Orren Boyle but will earn less, as Boyle has more inefficient furnaces. He explains that this plan will bankrupt him, regardless of how hard he works. The looters object to his logic, insisting that sacrifice is his moral duty.
The government’s Steel Unification Plan reveals their deliberate intent to exploit Hank’s productivity to sustain less competent producers like Orren Boyle. Hank’s immediate identification of the flaw in their logic—rewarding inefficiency—illustrates the destructive irrationality behind their policy. The officials’ insistence on sacrifice as his moral obligation exposes their strategy of moral coercion, seeking to leverage Hank’s integrity and work ethic against him.
Themes
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As they push him to comply, Hank recognizes the root of their power: they assume he will never stop producing. They believe his love for his work will force him to continue, no matter what chains they place on him. He sees the full scope of the system he has enabled and for the first time accepts that he has been complicit. The realization strikes hard: he has allowed the looters’ irrationality to persist by never walking away. When he leaves the room, someone tries to stop him. He brushes past them, having made up his mind. They are relying on him to save the world they are destroying.
Hank’s realization—that the looters depend on his continued productivity—marks a pivotal shift in his self-awareness. He sees clearly that his willingness to continue producing under impossible conditions enabled their destructive actions. His choice to walk away despite attempts to stop him symbolizes his decisive break with a system he now sees as morally indefensible.
Themes
Driving back to his mills, Hank sees smoke and flashing lights in the distance. A mob has stormed the gates. He swerves to avoid a body on the road and finds the Wet Nurse—Tony—shot and left in a ditch. The Wet Nurse reveals that Washington agents staged the riot, and he was shot when he tried to stop them. Hank holds him, calling him by name for the first time, and hears Tony’s final words about discovering the meaning of life. Hank kisses his forehead before he dies, mourning a boy raised to ignore reason and cripple his own mind. His anger builds as he thinks of the ideology that killed him.
The Wet Nurse’s death dramatically symbolizes the human cost of government-enforced irrationality. His final realization of life’s meaning, despite being raised in a morally twisted environment, demonstrates Rand’s argument for the innate human capacity to discover rational values. Hank’s grief and anger reflect his deepening rejection of a system responsible for destroying innocent minds through indoctrination and violence.
Themes
At the mills, Hank is struck in the head and blacks out. He wakes up in his office, his head bandaged. The riot has been quelled. The new furnace foreman shot the attackers and organized the defense. When Hank asks to see him, Francisco walks in. Francisco reveals he has been working at Rearden Steel since September 2, posing as the foreman and guarding Hank from the inside. Hank apologizes for misjudging him, but Francisco dismisses the apology. They share a quiet moment of understanding as the sun rises. Francisco says that Hank has been his greatest conquest, and now, finally, he is ready to hear everything.
Francisco’s presence reveals a strategic plan to protect Hank from within. Hank’s apology and Francisco’s calm dismissal illustrate mutual respect and understanding between people aligned by shared values and moral courage. Francisco’s readiness to finally explain everything to Hank signifies Hank’s complete ideological transformation: he is now prepared to fully understand and accept the philosophical rebellion against society’s moral corruption.
Themes
