There have been a lot of comments here about Ed-
die Willers. He is a very admirable character, al-
though no genius. I thought it was a mistake for the
movie-makers to make him black, because his
complete subordination to Dagny would make him look like an Uncle Tom.
He doesn't necessarily die in the book. I read
in Who is Ayn Rand? and, I think, also in some
of Ayn Rand's notes for the book, that his fate is
deliberately not determined; it is just a question;
if somebody comes along and rescues him, he
will survive; if not, not. I thought Cherryl and
Eddie would have made a good couple, though
that was impossible, because he was in love
with Dagny.

You're right. Actually I think I remember he refused to go with the wagon train, staying instead with the Taggart train, as he couldn't let it go. So I guess I assumed he died.

Eddie, maybe. Not sure about Cheryl. Maybe eventually.

wait, where did Eddie die? My recollection is that he was on a frozen train and he was rescued by a wagon train.

I always saw Eddie's end as a deliberate choice on his part -- he recognized that Dagny was in love with Galt and would end up with him [or die trying] and even though he recognized the rightness of their match, could not face losing her again [remember his shock when he discovered her affair with Reardon?] So even though we don't know, 100%, what happens to Eddie, we can see his refusal to be her #2 any more. Dagny, in the end, realizes that remaining at TT and running her trains supports the regime that wants to destroy Galt and thus she breaks free; but Eddie doesn't make that break. He still sees the survival of Taggart Transcontinental as a value of itself, and a vindication of his efforts, even if the trains are no longer carrying the lifeblood of productivity but rather the dregs who demand transportation as their entitlement. His was a conscious, deliberate choice, whereas Cheryl was driven, literally, over the edge by the repeated shocks to her psyche, by learning that she married a fraud and that he was unfaithful to her with Reardon's wife.

I have no doubt that either Eddie or Cheryl would have been welcome in the Gulch. The fact that they didn't get their speaks to an experience that most of us have felt -- to be an Objectivist is to be willing to live in a society that roundly condemns all that we hold to be most central to life and that takes strength, self-confidence, and a willingness to be the odd man out in most circumstances in our lives. If you aren't strong enough to stand apart from the world and recognize its follies and perversities, you probably won't feel that the Gulch is your natural home. Eddie and Cheryl would not have had the gumption to pull up stakes and throw in their lot with the Gulchers; they would have had to have someone to follow before they went there.

it was rhetorical -- "I just can't believe what I'm seeing," like the hockey ad on tv. -- j
.

She committed suicide because she did believe it, saw it as pervasive, and didn't know how to contend with it.

Yes, but Jim Taggert's need to destroy and Cherryl's hero worship were inherently intertwined. Jim Taggert had no ability or character worthy of admiration but wanted to be admired and loved. He picked an average shop girl who (until too late) could not see through his posturing. She admired him because she thought he was the person Dagny was. He knew it, and did not love her as love of value, but a contempt for the inferior; he wanted her for her flaws, not her value. It was love as alms.

He was dependent on her admiration and did not dare let her grow: He wanted her to remain the hero-worshipping shop girl dependent on him to live in the world, while he was dependent on her mistaken admiration for him, knowing he wasn't what she had thought he was. He needed her, the truly noble soul though of only average ability, to give him the unearned sanction of a spiritual superiority he sought, which in turn required destroying the good in her and preventing her from growing and learning the truth. He wanted to "break spines", including Cheryl's, and constantly undermined her. He had to, given what he was and the lie he lived. James Taggert boasted that he couldn't build an industry but he could destroy those who did as his power. He did the same in the spiritual realm to Cheryl.

It all illustrates the destructive falsehoods of love as alms, the desire for the unearned, and the hatred of the good for being good -- and what happens to good people of only average ability who lack the required philosophical understanding or anyone to guide them in attaining it: another example of the plot-theme of Atlas Shrugged showing what happens when the mind is withdrawn from society.

You can find Ayn Rand's detailed description of what she intended to portray and the flow of the logic of the characters' actions within the James Taggert-Cheryl Brooks relationship in The Journals of Ayn Rand, 1948 notes pp 581-2 and June 7 and 9, 1952 pp 641-2.

as a beautiful young woman, devoid of evil, she just could not
believe what she was seeing. . just as you said. -- j
.

letsShrug said this today: "What a load he's left you to bear. A pile of his unfunded ideas." same thing :)

The victims of the tunnel disaster were not portrayed as "nihilist lefties". They were a wide variety of people described as having embraced different elements of destructive philosophical views that were the cause of their demise.

Ayn Rand did not have a "melodramatic" style. You can read about her principles of romantic fiction writing in her The Romantic Manifesto and The Art of Fiction.

Eddie Willers was one of Ayn Rand's favorite characters. His fate was cast by the logic of the plot, not a desire to do him in. It illustrates what happens to people of ordinary abilities as a consequence of collectivism and statism based on conventional moral ideas of self-sacrifice as the good.

Agreed

I cried when Cherryl died, and again when Eddie died.

K, I have made a few comments on my post. Tell me what you think. :)

I think Rand was making the point that a world without heroes and run by the looters will destroy wonderful people like Cherryl and Eddie.

Remember when Roark would say that the pain only goes down to a certain point? I think Cherryl was unable to survive because when she saw the evil in the world, she felt that it contaminated her soul, and she couldn't live in that world. She was unable to close off her "self" as Roark was able to do.

K, I don't see Jim as that delusional. He appeared to buy in to the bullcrap about altruism as a cover for his real goal, which was raw power.then when he wasn't happy, I admit he would whine about why don't people love me?

I agree, Belle. Many of the comments here seem to see Jim as a confused, pitiful man who just wanted to be loved and admired. (I know I'm exaggerating there). I think Rand used his character to show a particular kind of evil that masquerades as something else.

"Who self-righteously made people beg for their own money". Beautifully stated.

John, I have been reading excerpts of Jim and Cherryl talking, and sometimes she catches glimpses of the evil behind Jim's eyes. He tells her that he just wants her love, but she sees something malevolent in him. I think what she sees in Jim, and it's not just his need to be admired, that's what destroys her, the intensity of an evil that she doesn't want to believe exists.

Emma, I have always thought that Jim wanted to be adored
by someone, and he felt confident that Cherryl would give
him that adoration, to fill a hole in his soul. . his self-confidence
was so thin that he needed help to shore it up. -- j

p.s. the relationship turned into a demonstration of pure evil,
since Jim effectively destroyed her. . hatred of the good for
being the good was, in the boiled-down analysis, his motive.
.

I really appreciate all the comments and the insight. I agree that Jim loved the adoration that Cherryl gave to him, but I think he always knew the admiration was based on a lie.
I think that Cherryl was a shining light, a beacon of innocence who was a young woman who embodied everything that a woman could be. As Scott said, she had the makings of a hero. She looked at the world with joy and anticipation and love of life.
I think there are many people in the world who feel that they cannot create or produce, but they can destroy. They feel that whatever the heroes of the world can produce, they can destroy, and that makes them more powerful than the hero.
Cherryl was the epitome of innocence and goodness, and I think Jim took great satisfaction in destroying her. The greater the destruction, the longer he kept his demons at bay. In the end, though, he had to face those demons; face reality, and it destroyed him.
So I think that the hero worship was secondary, and that Jims need to destroy was what Jim satisfied with Cherryl.
Edit:sp

That's why I also like the novel "Atlas Snubbed", it gave us a chance to see Eddie achieve his potential, out of Dagny's shadow.

Nicely put! :O

SPOILER:

ah, you are getting to mamaemma's argument. so you see Cherryl as a stand-in for Francisco. He cannot break Francisco, so Cherryl, who is also good, he can due to her ignorance. She feels ultimately trapped by his claims that he will use his crony pull to keep her in the marriage and when she sees the social worker on the dock-admonishing her to be self sacrificing, it is the undoing. she option locks that death is preferable to living under Taggart's thumb and evilness. interesting .