classic second handing. He needed to mold her to build him up.

Great analysis Scott.

I would also add that neither one of them could have articulated their reasons.
In Cheryl's case she was projecting on Jim so what she would say does not directly apply to him.
In Jim's case his insecurity and ego would prevent him from seeing his real reasons, and therefore not be able to articulate them.

The first time I read AS I was very young so I identified with Cheryl so much! You nailed it Scott. Cheryl was young, naïve, with a heroic soul. She thought she married a hero and her disillusionment when she realized her mistake was too much for her to handle. I cried when she killed herself. The death of innocence.

A great response to an insightful question.

Beautifully articulated.
I love the thought of Quentin and Cheryl as a couple.

Great, I just disagree on one point. If Eddie did not make it to the gulch then Cheryl would not have either.

I found Jim's interaction with Cherryl to be the most disgusting look at a looter, tied with the account of the woman at the motor plan who self-righteously made people beg her for their own money.

Jim sickly wanted Cherryl to feel a little out of place, as if she didn't belong with his better class of people and she was there only by his wonderful virtue of his overlooking the fact she was beneath him. He was an evil sick puppy

Yes, but Jim Taggert's need to destroy and Cherryl's hero worship were inherently intertwined. Jim Taggert had no ability or character worthy of admiration but wanted to be admired and loved. He picked an average shop girl who (until too late) could not see through his posturing. She admired him because she thought he was the person Dagny was. He knew it, and did not love her as love of value, but a contempt for the inferior; he wanted her for her flaws, not her value. It was love as alms.

He was dependent on her admiration and did not dare let her grow: He wanted her to remain the hero-worshipping shop girl dependent on him to live in the world, while he was dependent on her mistaken admiration for him, knowing he wasn't what she had thought he was. He needed her, the truly noble soul though of only average ability, to give him the unearned sanction of a spiritual superiority he sought, which in turn required destroying the good in her and preventing her from growing and learning the truth. He wanted to "break spines", including Cheryl's, and constantly undermined her. He had to, given what he was and the lie he lived. James Taggert boasted that he couldn't build an industry but he could destroy those who did as his power. He did the same in the spiritual realm to Cheryl.

It all illustrates the destructive falsehoods of love as alms, the desire for the unearned, and the hatred of the good for being good -- and what happens to good people of only average ability who lack the required philosophical understanding or anyone to guide them in attaining it: another example of the plot-theme of Atlas Shrugged showing what happens when the mind is withdrawn from society.

You can find Ayn Rand's detailed description of what she intended to portray and the flow of the logic of the characters' actions within the James Taggert-Cheryl Brooks relationship in The Journals of Ayn Rand, 1948 notes pp 581-2 and June 7 and 9, 1952 pp 641-2.

I agree, Belle. Many of the comments here seem to see Jim as a confused, pitiful man who just wanted to be loved and admired. (I know I'm exaggerating there). I think Rand used his character to show a particular kind of evil that masquerades as something else.

SPOILER:

ah, you are getting to mamaemma's argument. so you see Cherryl as a stand-in for Francisco. He cannot break Francisco, so Cherryl, who is also good, he can due to her ignorance. She feels ultimately trapped by his claims that he will use his crony pull to keep her in the marriage and when she sees the social worker on the dock-admonishing her to be self sacrificing, it is the undoing. she option locks that death is preferable to living under Taggart's thumb and evilness. interesting .

Remember when Roark would say that the pain only goes down to a certain point? I think Cherryl was unable to survive because when she saw the evil in the world, she felt that it contaminated her soul, and she couldn't live in that world. She was unable to close off her "self" as Roark was able to do.

I thought she ended her life because she realized her husband, who she thought was a great person who she lived, actually had a sick desire to keep her down to make himself feel good. That alone wouldn't have made her suicidal. She meets those charitable workers, whose main purpose is to help people in need. She realizes they want to do the same damn thing as Jim. They want to "help" in an altruistic way that involves being smug about taking the time to help a lesser human being. That's the tragedy of it. If she had run into one of the protagonists or someone like Roark was to the troubled young man on a bike, it could have been different. The reader wants to scream "Wait! There's a whole world of people with whom you could enter mutually beneficial agreements/relationships. Forget about these sanctimonious jerks."

I think this is also an important question. Was it only either/or for her at the end? In a way, you might say her actions were as deliberate as Eddie's

If Jim Taggart had bought a chihuahua or pekinese or whatever, it would have thrown itself under a truck at first opportunity, as many dogs do if living in impossible environment.

K, I'm at the Chicago airport heading home today. I will post as soon as I get home, consult AS, and get my thoughts together. For once I won't be commenting off the cuff!

K, I have made a few comments on my post. Tell me what you think. :)

K, I don't see Jim as that delusional. He appeared to buy in to the bullcrap about altruism as a cover for his real goal, which was raw power.then when he wasn't happy, I admit he would whine about why don't people love me?

"A [second-hander] is one who regards the consciousness of other men as superior to his own and to the facts of reality. It is to a [second-hander] that the moral appraisal of himself by others is a primary concern which supersedes truth, facts, reason, logic. The disapproval of others is so shatteringly terrifying to him that nothing can withstand its impact within his consciousness; thus he would deny the evidence of his own eyes and invalidate his own consciousness for the sake of any stray charlatan’s moral sanction. It is only a [second-hander] who could conceive of such absurdity as hoping to win an intellectual argument by hinting: “But people won’t like you!” The Virtue of Selfishness

John, I have been reading excerpts of Jim and Cherryl talking, and sometimes she catches glimpses of the evil behind Jim's eyes. He tells her that he just wants her love, but she sees something malevolent in him. I think what she sees in Jim, and it's not just his need to be admired, that's what destroys her, the intensity of an evil that she doesn't want to believe exists.