On my first read thru I thought Cheryls character was developing the strength you are talking about. Clearly she didn't. The world looks a lot different to me after reading Rands books.

I would never go Cheryl. I love my life and I will fight for it tooth and nail. Sure, I have been down, out, kicked and beat up in life but never to a Cheryl level and I never will be. I chose life.

Idol worshipper definitely fits. Because of that the truth has a greater impact. Great analysis.

It wasn't until I understood Ayn Rand better that I finally understood the full impact of Cheryls character. As I started meeting AS fans and many told me they read it multiple times I wondered why. Now I realize that so much happens its impossible to take it all in. My first read thru I figured it was just the impact of finding out James was not who she thought he was but it's much more than that. Excellent description of where she was mentally when it happened.

I think it was shown as a newspaper headline and James and Dagny were shown mourning. It would have taken a lot of time to properly develop her character.

It was more than that. She saw herself complicit in what James had become and what he was doing to Dagny.

Cheryl was an idol worshipper. She and the Wet Nurse (the other idol worshipper) are both enthralled by advancement, but before they can achieve it, they meet tragic ends at the hands of the looters and moochers. It was her placing her faith in James that destroyed her. Rand was showing that faith (the belief in things without evidence) is ultimately destructive and to survive you need to have beliefs based in truth and facts. When James was shown to be just another looters and was using Cheryl as a way to bolster his self esteem, Cheryl's worldview fell away. She had thought she had gotten away from the moochers of her past, only to have married another. This ultimately shatters her, and while she could have gone to Dagny to help her put her life back together, she believes that Dagny is going to have enough problems fighting her battles with the looters that she doesn't want to add to her burden. She has seen the reality of the world and realises she is ill prepared to survive and see jumping to her death as the only way out.

I fell for Cheryl from our first meeting of her, having once been a Cheryl in our world of Dr Jekyll \Mr Hyde's, I knew her story would not end well. She was sweet and innocent, believed in all her naivety that James was her salvation. Once she realized how indifferent he was to both her and all others, she was lost, with no allies. She had no where to run and nothing left of her former self. This is not an easy point in life to return from. She saw herself at the bottom of the barrel and simply could not endure the fight back up to the top. Imagine an average person gets the opportunity to hang out with their idol, the actor, athlete, or artist, gets to spend real quality time with that person, I would be willing to bet after the realization of the truth of their oftentimes pathetic existence, life would change for them. Some can use the experience and evolve, be better people with a new outlook on life. Others will crumble in the reality and raw truth. Cheryl was the latter.

I'm curious: did Cheryl kill herself in the movie? (I haven't seen part 3 yet.) In the book, Rand led us through Cheryl's thought process and emotional state so that her suicide made some kind of sense, but I never could see a way to portray it in action that wouldn't seem just insane.

Yes, Ayn Rand saved my life. Reading Atlas brought me back from the brink. When one's sense of self-worth is constantly battered, and in Cherryl's case sadistically beaten down, one sees no reason for living.

Cherryl was mocked and disdained by her own husband for the best within her, of trying to improve herself to be worthy of who she thought he was, a hero. She did not have that independent strength that only the true heroes possess. She needed a world that would not be a daily struggle for survival, that would cherish her goodness and reward her efforts to rise. Rand made it palpable how the evil hiding in characters like Jim destroys the good... for being the good.

What saved me was Rand's dictum of not living for the approval of others, not sacrificing oneself for others (nor sacrificing others to oneself). The right to one's own life is the first principle. All social contracts derive from that premise.

We are taught too often by those seeking to exploit our benevolent nature that we must submit to the demands of the group, or to the bullies. I can only hope that everyone who reads Atlas Shrugged will acquire the intellectual strength to resist such pressures. Their life may depend on it.

yeah. look at Netanyahu- he is grovelling at the feet of Obama to get more money.

The Feds provide so much money to the States I don't think we will see that happen.

Maybe not as much as you think. After all, in order to believe that shi** er, stuff, you have to be somewhat delusional to start with.

I really see Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and most other politicians as EVIL. They are not nice people. Look at what Obama did to the whistleblowers Manning and Snowden. His arrogance and petulance was right out there to be seen. Fortunately Snowden was smarter and knew what would happen to him- so he escaped (not that Putin would be any better if it suited him politically).

It was a trap that we are all caught up in today in the USA. I work and they take money they use to enslave me. If I dont work, I starve. If I dont give money to them, they imprison me. Fortunately there is the Gulch blog. I wish there was ONE state that seceded from the USA that was rational and objectivist leaning (at least)- I would move there in a flash.

I think she had two options- if she didnt kill herself, she would have been a serial killer terrorist trying to kill as many people as possible before she got killed. I think this is where the suicide bombers are at psychologically. When you cant stand where you are and you can do nothing about it- kill them all.

I dont have a lot of social interactions these days. Very few people around who are rational and actually think about things. If I was forced to interact with them, I would probably have some of the same feelings as Cheryl. Rand was a master at identifying the impact of philosophy on the mind of a person. I have to hand it to her.

I say her death represents a complete disgust with the state of human nature and the world. The existence of one or two rational people wasnt enough to keep her sense of life alive.

I can actually understand where she was at. I feel the same things myself sometimes. When I am surrounded by all this entitled socialistic manipulation crap, I want to just escape and be alone. Its also not quite as bad today as it was in AS. But the number of people who actually think and are rational is quite a small percentage of the population here in the USA. Thats one reason I read a lot of the posts on the Gulch. I can do it in the quiet of being apart from the entitled socialism of today

I wonder how an average left wing progressive would react today if they realized their "leaders" were only interested in power. What if in one moment they were told that climate change, immigration, race relations...were all being manipulated for purely political reasons. It would be a tremendous shock.

A pure liquid metal dipped into a bath of crud does not remain pure for long. This was the reality Cheryl found intolerable.

Yes. She represented a lot more than I realized on my first reading.

Show of hands please. How many of you have almost given up in every sense of the word, and all it would take is one or two more disasters caused by an insane world before you'd go Cheryl? That would take a lot of courage on your part to admit such a thing. How many who raised their hands felt renewed when they read Atlas or Fountainhead, and no longer felt quite so down. Perhaps an upswing at the bottom? I could go chapter by chapter, pointing out how A.R. burns down the straw dogs of incorrect premises and points out the way out of the madness that has taken over the world in the story, and has since taken over the world in reality. Amazing how rationality feels like a cleansing shower.

Cherryl was a heroine, a crystal-clear representation of Rand's
complete adoration of the average people -- like Eddie Willers --
who do not lie to themselves, who are honest and have integrity,
who make this world run. . the fact that she chose to end
her life told me that she could not endure the agony of
finding that reality was so incredibly distorted that she
could not make sense of it. . she gave up. . it was awful;;;
it made me cry, but I can relate -- hell, it makes me cry NOW.

Do Not Give Up, Folks!!! -- john
.

This is the interview I was thinking of.
Youtube video on altruism, the relevant part starts at about 7:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51pMo...
I don't know how factually correct she was here, and we should be careful about assuming the causal link (altruism caused suicide), which might be 'confirmation bias' on our part. But I believe that was the link Rand was trying to imply with Cheryl.

A trap is a great way of stating it. James would have "acquired" her the way he did everything else. She would have known he would not let her go quietly. The more I feel I get to know Rand the more I realize that everything in AS and her other novels happens for a reason. She would not have done it simply for the shock but to make a very a important point. I'm getting a better understanding now.