On the surface he appears to be no more than a well-educated, smooth, genial, if slightly dim and cowardly figurehead he is in reality an emotional cripple.

The incompetent, falsley sentimental President of Taggart Transcontinental Railway.

It is only when she has had to give up the railway in despair, when entirely hobbled by restrictive government policies, that she is able to begin to know and understand the reasons behind what John Galt, Francisco, and their friends are doing. She gives almost all of her time and energy to the railway, and has never, under any circumstances, conceived of something that would mean more to her than this family business. To offset her remarkably rational turn of mind, Dagny has an almost irrational devotion to Taggart Transcontinental. She has none of the conventional sexual morality of most women of her time, and conducts her personal relationships much as a man of that era would. Personally she is remarkably unsentimental and almost anti-romantic, in that she has never subscribed to any idealized notions of love. Dagny is far more capable at running the railway than James Taggart is, and, except in the matters of (largely disastrous) government policy, Dagny is the final arbiter of all the railway's affairs.Ī single woman, who, after her long, oft-interrupted affair with Francisco d'Anconia ends remains alone for many years, she nevertheless is powerfully attracted to the steel magnate Hank Rearden. Dagny was raised on the opulent Taggart estate, and though she is remarkably well-educated for a woman of her time (she has an engineering degree) it was always clear that her elder brother, James, would be the one who would take over Taggart Transcontinental's top position, regardless of the siblings' relatives talents. The novel's heroine is an unsentimental, ambitious, and unconventional woman. Vice President in Charge of Operations of Taggart Transcontinental Railway.

Dagny atlas shrugged