America Crumbles

Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden spend most of their time in a few industrialized areas around the United States. Colorado, is the crown jewel amongst a pile of rubble. When Dagny and Hank decide to take a break from work and take a road trip, it gives the reader the opportunity to examine the condition of the rest of the nation. The descriptions of the rest of the country are far from glamorous. Most places are deserted, and if they are occupied then the houses are run down.  All the roads are either badly paved or well paved roads that were sparsely travelled, indicting that they must have been near a flourishing city that have since died off.  There was not a single billboard on the side of the road, indicating that innovation and ingenuity had all but vanished from these parts of the country. In the town they visited, in order to see the twentieth Century Motor Company, the people had never seen a car before. They didn’t use electricity and they moved about with horse drawn carriages. The final shock was engine that could have potentially saved the world was ripped apart and abandoned along with popcorn wrappers and beer cans. No one had bothered to figure out what it was. The most valued item in the entire factory was left to rot. I believe that the road trip was meant to show the reader how far the rest of America had regressed. Ayn Rand also used the trip to demonstrate that the one thing that could have possibly saved America, died along with hope that the of America would survive.  Will Rearden and Dagny be America’s only hope?