The Journals of Ayn Rand (75 page)

Such is the relationship between the prime mover and the collective. It has been such all through history—and it is sanctioned, demanded, expected, held to be virtuous by mankind’s moral codes and philosophies.
It is against this that the prime movers go on strike in my story.

This part has to be kept in mind clearly and covered thoroughly. This is
the basis
of the whole story. I must decide in what way I present it—but it
must be presented.
(I’ll have to think over the prologue in this connection.) It is not just that the prime movers go on strike—it’s
why
they go on strike and
against what.
The “against what” must be made crystal clear—or the story is pointless.

On the basis of this beginning, the story then proceeds like this: The prime movers say to the world, in effect: “You hate us. You don’t want us. You put every obstacle in our way. Very well—we’ll stop. We won’t fight you or bother you. We’ll merely stop functioning. We’ll stop doing the things you martyr us for.
And see how you like it. ”

The complete statement of the strike’s objective is: “We have had enough of your exploitation, persecution, insults, stealing, and expropriation. Go ahead and try to exist without us. We will not come back until you recognize and acknowledge the truth of the matter. Until you admit what we are, give us full credit for what we do, and give us
full freedom
from your chains, orders, restrictions and encroachments—physical, spiritual, political, and
moral.
Until you accept a philosophy that will leave us alone to function as we please. Until you take your hands off us—
and keep them off.
We ask nothing but the freedom to work and live as we please. You will get gifts and benefits from us such as you can never imagine. But you will not get them until you leave us alone. We are doing this in the name of all the great men whom you martyred in the past—and for the sake of all the great men you intend to martyr in the future. In the name of and for the sake of man’s greatness and man’s dignity. Once and for all, we will put an end to the torture of the best by [means of] their best—the penalizing of genius for [being] genius.”

This
is the theme of the novel.

The story then shows what happens to the world when its heart stops.
This point
must be thought out carefully, in every detail, in every aspect. In a general way, what happens is total paralysis. Spiritually and physically. The wheels stop—and thought stops. All life, hope, and joy go with them. All energy, fire, color, imagination, enthusiasm. It is a kind of slow, creeping, progressive “rigor mortis.” Not horror and violence—but slow disintegration. Slow rot. The gray horror of dullness, stupidity, incompetence, inertia. Most particularly
inertia.

Show how the world stops entirely. And when it has stopped, when the collective has destroyed itself—the world learns its lesson. The prime movers can come back.

To be thought out in detail: (1) every representative aspect of the prime mover who is martyred or stopped by society; (2) every representative aspect of the different way in which prime movers stop and go on strike—the kind of people they are and how they do it; (3) every representative aspect of the way in which the second-hander cannot function by himself and paralyzes the world. Every aspect of how and why and in what way the world has to stop without the prime movers—and does stop.

John Galt

Dagny Taggart

Francisco d‘Anconia

James Taggart

Eddie Willers

The opening of the story proper with: “Who is John Galt?” The bum in a desolate city street at twilight. The first signs of a city’s disintegration. The “afternoon” uneasiness. The calendar on the tower. Eddie Willers thinking of the great oak stricken by lightning, hollow inside—as he comes to the great building of Taggart Transcontinental. The marvelously efficient offices—and the heart of the building, the office of James Taggart. “Don’t bother me, don’t bother me, don’t bother me,” said James Taggart.

The introduction of Dagny Taggart as she walks through the offices like a gust of fresh wind.

Dagny and Francisco d‘Anconia. “Who is John Gait?”—“Stop using that cheap figure of gutter legend!”

Dagny and the engineer who quits mysteriously.

The girl writer at the book store window: “No, it’s not in that window. It will never be in that window.” [
The girl writer is the fishwife in the valley; AR initially planned a larger role for the character.
]

The radio talk: “Don’t bother trying to choke it off. It can’t be done. This is John Galt speaking.... How did I do it? You could have had that secret and many, many others.”

About John Galt’s invention: “In the eighteenth century, it could have been the steam engine. In the nineteenth—the automobile. In the twentieth—the airplane. In
our
day—you’ll never learn.”

John Galt’s answer to the offer of planned power over the world: “Get the hell out of my way.”

The last scene: in the mountains of their valley, looking down at a wrecked road—like the roads left of the Roman Empire. A house with a roof caved in—the skeleton of an automobile with its wheels in the air—and in the distance the stubborn fire fighting the wind. John Galt said: “This is our day. The road is cleared. We’re going back.”

 

 

The key points which will have to be
dramatized
(in concrete events,
not
merely by implication and exposition):

The nature of the
prime movers’ martyrdom. That
must be
shown.
(There must be some equivalent of the prologue—some figure such as the composer—either in action or in flashback, but preferably in direct action.) This is needed not only because it is such an important point, never before covered anywhere—but also because it gives meaning to the strike itself. It is
the spirit of the strike
—and the justification.
It is the very thing that made me want to write this novel.
Without that point, the story would become merely a recital of the physical aspects of the strike, just plot events of a struggle which could not interest us very much because we are not let in on its essential purpose and motive. It would actually feature the second-handers—what happens to
them,
not to the strikers. The predominant emotion left by the book would be contempt, hatred, ridicule, gloating over the second-handers and their plight—but no uplift to the spirit of the strikers. The strikers would become only a kind of plot means to expose the parasites.

I must consider very carefully the statements I made in my [earlier] notes to the effect that
the world
is featured in the story, and
the relation
of society to its prime movers. There is a fine balance of theme and construction which I must achieve here. It is somewhat the same problem as in
The Fountainhead:
the second-handers
must not
be allowed to steal the show, to become the stars of the story. Even though I do not here treat of the
nature
of prime movers, but of
their relation
to society—it is still
the prime movers
who are to be the stars: it is still
their
story. The balance must be: what happens to the world without the strikers—but also, what happens to the strikers.

The general scheme, then, is: society’s crime against the prime movers—the prime movers go on strike—society collapses—the prime movers come back.

A question to decide here is: whether there should be a concrete act of
repentance
on the part of society, an act of acknowledgment, the issue understood once and for all—or whether the strikers win merely by default, coming back because their road is cleared. This last is what actually happens historically—but then the implication would be that once the strikers have rebuilt the world, the whole process would begin all over again. The first (the repentance) is difficult to conceive; who is to do the repenting? Are second-handers capable of such an act, of understanding and justice?
This
must be thought out.

[In my notes of January 1], I have the sentence “the world learns its lesson.” As a possibility, I might have a specific villain in the story who symbolized the parasites and society, who exploits the prime movers—and who repents at the end. It might be James Taggart. Or it might be several men, each representing a key aspect of society and of the parasite.

The theme stated in its simplest form: it is John Galt saying to an inefficient stenographer: “You presumptuous fool! I have no desire to work for you nor to be martyred for that privilege. You think I should and you think you can force me to. All right—try it.”

(A possible lead in thinking out the construction: the story could actually be told in the terms of one life—the personal relationship of one creator to one second-hander. Try to visualize it as that—then translate it into a social picture, by individualizing the separate key aspects of the conflict.)

Keep in mind throughout the story the realistic aspect of the fantastic theme—the
actual
ways in which prime movers
do
go on strike, though it is not a conscious, organized strike. By stressing that, keeping it as the foundation of the characters’ psychology, using it consistently for concrete cases, as illustration—I will make the story profoundly
real,
spiritually real. The plot device of the strike will then become only an exaggeration of that which actually happens, an emphasis for purposes of clarity and eloquence—not pure fantasy.

The two realistic ways in which prime movers go on strike are: (1) what happens to talented and exceptional men under dictatorships; and (2) how sensitive, talented people stop functioning when they are disgusted by the society around them, as at the present time here in America.

This last form of striking always happens when gifted men find themselves in a morally corrupt society. (And such a society is always collectivist, or on its way to collectivism, because morality and individualism are inseparable. The degree of individualism in a society determines the degree of its morality.) In effect, the gifted men find themselves dealing with men and conditions that
they do not wish to deal with.
So they do one of three things: (1) they do not function at all and become drifting, aimless bums; (2) they function in some field other than their proper one and produce only enough for their own sustenance, refusing to let the world benefit from their surplus energy; or (3) they function in their proper field but produce less than one tenth of their actual capacity—it is a strained, unhappy, forced effort for them—their natural desire and their energy demanding an outlet, in conflict with their disgust against the conditions under which their energy has to function.

Examples to keep in mind: (1) Gus Vollmer, Linda Lynneberg (?); (2) Frank [O‘Connor], Pat’s publisher (Earle Balch), Dr. Kramer and all the doctors who wish to retire if socialized medicine is passed; (3) Pat.

1.
The actual plot must contain emotional conflict.
There is the danger of having mere action, without emotional content, if I start with the strikers already on strike. Their decision is then undrama tized, behind the scenes—and the story can become passive, like their action of just doing nothing. (Here—show that it is not easy for them to break the ties.)

2. The strikers must have something to do more than just strike. Otherwise, the parasites will carry the story by carrying the action.
It still must be the strikers’ story—they must carry and motivate the plot.

John Galt tells one of those who is unconsciously on strike from bitterness and disillusionment: “You think the world is essentially a mixture of good and evil, and one must compromise with the evil, and you’re sick of that, so you’re giving up the world? Nonsense. Evil, by definition (if we have made the right definition), is the impotent, the impractical, the powerless, that which does not work. So it is no threat to us, it cannot stand in our way—
unless we permit it and help it to do so.
It cannot poison the world for us—unless we carry the poison and spread it. The parasites cannot exploit us or rule us—unless we voluntarily agree to be exploited and hand them the tools with which to rule us.
Let us withdraw the tools.