by Joshua Pantalleresco

Created on: November 25, 2009

Who is John Galt?

This phrase appears over and over again throughout the book. For each person it had a number of meanings, which in some cases evolved as the story progresses. One of the more clever things Ayn Rand did in Atlas Shrugged was keep Galt as a character out of the book until roughly two thirds into the novel. This accomplished two things very well. The first was that it gave Galt a sense of mystery. Some characters hated him, others seemed to worship him, while others vowed to destroy him. In any case, there was a question with his name - a literal as well as mythic one. Who is John Galt and why is he so important?

The second thing it accomplished was it showed you exactly where each character in the story stood with their principals. Galt polarized the cast of the book. Dagny Taggart at first despised him as he seemed to be the destroyer who took away all the talented and gifted people of the world. James Taggart fears him and looks at him as a secret dread. For Franscisco D'anconia, Galt is his motive, his reason for doing the things he does. He is Galt's principal agent in the first half of the story. Only when Galt appears do you truly understand what Franscisco is really after. Professor Robert Sadler sees Galt as his conscious and soul- what he traded away for a hollow institute. Throughout the book, each and every main character confronts John Galt either figuratively or literally (or in some cases, both.)

Of all the characters, it is Dagny through whom we explore all those mythos with. Through her we find out that Galt is Prometheus, and the man who rediscovered Atlantis. Galt is her enemy, and yet is also her destination. She seeks the man that invented the motor, to explain why he abandoned such an incredible work of genius. It is also her quest to find the man she loves, who possesses the qualities she loves most about love. Galt is Dagny's conflict. How can he invent a motor and leave it to rot? How can he be the destroyer if he is capable of wonders such as these?

When Galt finally does enter the book, his mystery is solved. I was kind of sad when I met Galt's character at first. Part of the mystique he carried in the first two thirds disappears. I realized though after careful thought that this was the point. The book wouldn't have worked as well as it did if Galt had been involved as much as he was in the last third of the book. There would have been no mystery to the story, and the mystery of the motor was the driving force behind a lot of the novel.

But when that mystery is solved, Rand gifts us with the person. And without the concrete, no nonsense, pragmatic, ingenuitive and compasssionate human being, there would have been no point in the mystery. No point to A is A. Galt needed to appear in the end to show the world the ideal that he represents.

Once he appears Dagny finally has to resolve her own conflict with the impending collapse of the world she knows and the seeming contradiction that Galt presents to her.

All in all, as readers, we all have to develop our own opinion on who Galt is. Is he the destroyer or the motor of the world? After reading it, I think a bit of both. That in itself is the final beauty of Atlas Shrugged - you can decide who John Galt is for yourself.

Learn more about this author, Joshua Pantalleresco.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.