The Symbol, the Heroine & Hero, and the Credo

This is written as an accompaniment to The Origin of the Dollar Sign article which you may see by clicking here.

THE DOLLAR SIGN IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE

One famous figure in American literature was actually an immigrant who fled the oppression of early twentieth-century Russia. Her original name was Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (in Russian: Àëèñà Çèíîâüåâíà Ðîçåíáàóì), but she is more commonly known through her uniquely American name, Ayn Rand.

For those of you familiar with classic American literature, you will know Rand was the author of seminal works written in epic proportions - books such as The Fountainhead and the controversial Atlas Shrugged.

SEE THE MOVIES, OR...

If you don't have the time to read these two wonderful tomes depicting a utopian early industrial America, then you may see the movie versions of both. The Fountainhead Appears as a classic film starring Jimmy Stewart. Atlas Shrugged as a movie is still in planning and (at the time of this writing) will feature Angelina Jolie as the book's very capable heroine, Dagny Taggart.

READ THE BOOKS INSTEAD

To do justice to either of these stories, and to get a true feel of the hopes and dreams that went to the heads of early American ancestors, please read the books before seeing the movies.

MYTHIC HEROINE: DAGNY TAGGART

For those of you who know Ayn Rand's revolutionary push for women's equality in a conservative society of early America, the "hero" of in Atlas Shrugged is a heroine - a woman. Not just any woman, but the beautiful and ever-powerfully confident character of Dagny Taggart. Dagny takes on an almost heard of position of power at the time Atlas Shrugged was written: she is Vice President of Operations for Taggart Transcontinental, one of America's largest rail transport corporations, a company that is indeed the very lifeline of an early industrial America. Endlessly plagued by the hopelessness of effete corporate freeloaders within her company, Dagny plows through them and miraculously drives the company onward towards capitalism and its goal: the earning of a dollar.

THE MYSTERIOUS DOLLAR SIGN

In the epic Atlas Shrugged, author Ayn Rand speaks reverently of the industrious nature of early America and the touts the dollar sign as the symbol of America's hope and innovation.

In the story of Atlas Shrugged, we see Dagny attempting to chase down her nemesis, the elusive and mysterious John Galt, who leaves the dollar sign behind seemingly at every turn - and thus the monetary moniker takes on a mysterious air. While tracking down the elusive John Galt, Dagny determines that Galt smokes cigarettes bearing a symbol borne by no other known cigarette manufacturer in America. The cigarette butts she found while tracking the mysterious Galt bore the dollar sign, printed in luminous gold ink on the butt of each stick.

After Dagny Taggart finally catches up with Galt, he later reveals the cigarettes were made only by him, and were smoked only by him and the secret society he founded before the collapse of America and its corrupt corporate and governmental organs. In one of the many epiphanic discourses breathing within Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart and John Galt discuss the origin of the dollar sign as a symbol of truly American idealism:

"...the sign of the dollar is the symbol of man's mind, his right to his own work, his life, his happiness."

THE CREDO

The dollar sign cannot signify both the means and the end. There is the ideal behind the power also. Dagny Taggart literally and metaphorically stands next to John Galt while he speaks the words, his life credo.

Sounding out with not only with the words of the message that directed his life, Galt's voice resounds in a heart-felt conviction and meaning, which is truly the heart of the "key-less entry" Galt holds to the door of the edifice protecting the perpetual motion machine he invented - and verily the awakening power within his heart:

"I swear by my life and by my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

IDEALS TO STUDY, TO EMBRACE

While many may pass off Rand's words in Atlas Shrugged as mere utopianism or idealism, the work itself can be taken in the least as an epic, a story of mythic proportions very much as the Iliad and Odyssey have been held. Written for modern times, Atlas Shrugged has been the breath of fresh air in storytelling that the original classic served as. Where now the destructive nature of government runs rampant in depressed economies and continued unsustainable treatment of the environment, people turn to examples of idealism for inspiration.

While Atlas Shrugged does not offer a solid step-by-step how-to for reparation of all the world's ills, I strongly suggest it for anyone in their formative years of coming to personal power, a power that may grow indefinitely for the good of humankind.

PS: ATLAS SHRUGGED: THE MOVIE

Also see the article about Atlas Shrugged (the movie), by clicking here.

Dedication:

I write this in tribute to: Dani, a friend coming into her own power in recent times; to my sister Katyana, who survives and even lives to this day despite great adversity; and to my brother, Josef, who is successfully chasing down and finally finding the John Galt living within his heart.

- John

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