The Ayn Rand Institute is holding their 10th annual Atlas Shrugged Essay Competition. The Contest, which is open to college students or graduated high school students attending college in the fall, asks entrants to select and write about one of three questions:
1. Why do Dagny and Rearden oppose the strikers in action?
2. Explain Ragnar Danneskjold’s statement that Robin Hood is the one man he is out to destroy. What is the deeper moral meaning of his claim?
3. For each of the following three passages from Atlas Shrugged, explain its meaning and its relation to the story and theme of the novel.
a. Galt: "In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube.”
-Part Three, Chapter VII
b. Dagny: “We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?”
Galt: “No, we never had to.”
-Part Three, Chapter I
c. Francisco: “You have a great deal of courage, Dagny. Some day, you’ll have enough of it.”
-Part One, Chapter V
If you've never read Atlas shrugged, it's considered a classic business/philosophy book. It is about a man John Galt, who says he will stop the motor of the world and does. Factories, farms, shops, etc. all come to a halt. You'll have to read the book to find out why he did it and what happens from that point.
I enjoyed the book although I found it a bit preachy and long-winded at the end. I preferred the Fountainhead, which also deals with her philosophy, called Objectivism.
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