Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - Essay Example

Humankind’s escape from the state of spiritual and eternal bliss to the mad quest for mundane obsession has repeatedly emerged as one of the favorite themes of discussion and criticism for literary artists in different times, although such process received different forms of literary manifestations. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is one of the greatest literary pieces deals with the same theme and during the course of reflecting over different aspects of modern existence it has provided considerable focus over different aspects of human life, starting from gender, spiritual, physical and philosophical discourses.

The theme of “individualism and collectivism … manifested within the individual’s soul” (Sciabarra 114) has recurred among Ayn Rand’s literary works at different points of time; however, in the Atlas Shrugged her mastery to treat the same theme has reached culmination as she has been able to fuse both literary techniques and philosophical arguments to their perfectly measured respective proportions. The storyline of Atlas Shrugged provides a reader with an interesting mode of characterization, and the main reason behind such characterization can be the author’s conscious effort to portray the characters as perfect representatives of the modern world of capitalist observation both towards life, society and social duties or commitments.

Presence of the capitalist socio-economic discourse at the heart of the novel plays a very important role in the context of orienting the nature of characters and parts that they have played in contributing to the ongoing course of the story. On one hand, the author has narrated tale of a society, where immorality and extreme selfishness gnawed the foundation of morality and fellowship; on the other, suffering of individuals, their emotional tenderness and their spiritual and emotional suffocation within an extremely inhuman situation clearly indicate that every time the entire social system will