I understand that I ranted last time, and I thought it would be enough, but unfortunately no. No it is not. I have still not forgiven Rand's choice of making all these people live in Munchkinland. The worst part for me though, is Dagny.
Dagny... what are you? What has this woman become? I feel like she is a character in a crappy ecchi now (for those of you who are not sure what that means it is a Japanese slang term for erotic fantasy and is a genre of manga and anime). She has so many characteristics much like the protagonists in crappy manga. She accepts this seemingly perfect male who has been stalking her for years and gradually, through living with him begins to fall in love with him. She works for him as a servent (all she's missing is a maid uniform) and she COOKS for him. She COOKS for him! Okay, for those of you who have any knowledge of what I'm talking about- does this not sound like every single ecchi manga ever?
What more? She's adorably "clumsy" now. It disgusts me. This is what I feared, this is what I was writing about in my first blog post. She has become romanticized to the point where I can barely take her seriously any longer.
Another thing that I need to fess up to (if this book is really going to be like this) is that despite my annoyance with Francisco- I want him to be with Dagny. I do not care that John Galt is supposedly "everything Dagny has been looking for", their relationship disturbs me. I am so angry that this book has gone in this direction. I was really enjoying it but now I can barely stand to read it. No one is the same character anymore. Francisco is weak, Dagny is a bimbo- WHAT IS GOING ON! These are not the characters I've been devoting my reading time to.
Again, I really hope that Ayn Rand can redeem herself and find a way to guide me quickly towards the end with a feeling of satisfaction. This book has become a jumbled mess, I hope the resolve brings all the pieces back to their proper places.
I absolutely agree with Rachel's post this week. What hit me most through was her discussion of Rand’s perception of Dagny. I too, like Rachel, admired and respected her independent woman attitude in the beginning of the novel; however, through her transition Dagny constantly depends on not only a man, but one with status and economic fortune in order for her to to feel a small level of comfort. She now has become a helpless woman consumed by romanticized thoughts. As a result, both Rachel and I have no level of respect for her but rather a strong levels of frustration and heartache. Because Dagny compensates for her fears through her exploitation of men her world is crumbling apart. At first, when she did not ache for a man to caress her body, her company was surely but slowly rising up the market; but now, her company is falling down the pits. Fear has conquered Dagny instead of Dagny conquering her own fear. It is the fact that that has made the book much more difficult for Rachel and I to read. A character that we once both admired because she defied in a sense the laws of society has now fallen to her knees in desperation for assistance not from just anyone, but from a man.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Rachael’s ideas regarding Dagny. She used to be such an independent and respectable woman, but has transformed into someone who cannot be taken seriously and is somewhat careless. I find it odd that she can be in love with a man who was watching her for ten years prior to their meeting without her knowledge. She in unable to overlook his creepy behavior simply because she thinks she is in love with him. I am not confident that the two are truly in love; I think Dagny may feel this way because John Galt has diminished some of her problems, and she has the need to feel a certain way about him now. He was the destroyer she was looking for and now that she has found him, maybe she thinks there is a certain obligation she must uphold. Regardless, I no longer like Dagny’s character.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rachael as well. Dagny was first introduced as a strong, independent woman who believed in hard work and going after what she wanted in life. As the novel progresses, Dagny's attitude and perspective on life is completely different from how she was initially characterized. Like Priya said, it really is quite absurd that she fell in love with a man who openly confessed to practically stalking her for years and years. Honestly, who would want to be in a relationship with someone as creepy as that? I cannot say that I like the "new" Dagny, because I do not. At the beginning of the novel she was my favorite character, but the more I get to know her and see how pathetic she is becoming, the more I dislike her. I no longer respect Dagny's character because the traits that I respected most about her seemed to disappear when a mysterious man entered her life. Dagny Taggart is becoming a cliche.
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