Re:Ask HN: What else do you do besides computers?
by mindcrime on Friday February 18, 2011 @04:45PM
(#2237404)
The characters that I think I'm supposed to like (Dagny and the prince boyfriend) all seem to have gotten where they are by being born into awesome situations. Don't get me wrong - Dagny is a hell of a lot more sympathetic than her brother, for example - but it's hard to look at her as a "self-made woman" when the railroad has been a family business for like 5 generations.
That's true, but there seems to be a concerted effort throughout the story to tie her - in a sort of spiritual sense - to her grandfather who built the railroad originally. She thinks about him a lot and you get the sense that she is - at times - asking herself "Can I be as good a person as he was, can I be that brave, that strong, etc?"
By the end of the book I felt a lot of sympathy for both Dagny and Rearden.
That's true, but there seems to be a concerted effort throughout the story to tie her - in a sort of spiritual sense - to her grandfather who built the railroad originally. She thinks about him a lot and you get the sense that she is - at times - asking herself "Can I be as good a person as he was, can I be that brave, that strong, etc?"
By the end of the book I felt a lot of sympathy for both Dagny and Rearden.