Ellis Wyatt
Ellis Wyatt
Aliases: "Wyatt of Wyatt Oil"; "the Colorado man."
Role
The young Colorado oil magnate who pioneered shale-oil extraction and turned a played-out field into the most productive oil region in America. The book's first dramatic vanishing. At the end of Part I, broken by federal directives, he sets fire to every well, derrick, and pipeline of Wyatt Oil and disappears, leaving a board nailed in place: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours." Resident in Galt's Gulch from Ch. 21 forward.
Personality / energy
Hard, direct, plainspoken, no patience for bureaucracy. The American Western producer in pure form. Hospitable to people he respects, contemptuous of people he does not.
Physical description
Early forties, tall (~6'1"), lean and weather-burned. Dark brown hair under a broad-brimmed hat in the field. Sharp-cut Western features — strong jawline, deep tan, blue eyes accustomed to long horizons. Hands callused from manual work.
Outfit
- At Wyatt Junction: dark moleskin trousers, a heavy work shirt rolled to the elbow, a leather jacket, broad-brimmed hat, work boots
- In NYC for business: a Western-cut dark suit, string tie or knit tie, a soft hat
- In the valley: rough work clothes, drilling-grade gloves
- Lighting his fields (Ch. 10, by implication): silhouette in firelight, hat brim, hard face lit orange
Visual motifs
- An oil derrick at Colorado sunset
- A wall of vertical flame burning above an oil field — "Wyatt's Torch"
- A modern lodge of stone and glass on a desert canyon rim
- A nailed board in firelight bearing his farewell
Power signature
Not applicable. His "signature" is the burning oil field — Wyatt's Torch — and the Colorado canyon lodge.
Chapter appearances
1 (mentioned), 7, 8, 10, 21, 22, 30.
Source references
- Wikipedia — Atlas Shrugged: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
- SparkNotes — Atlas Shrugged character list: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/atlasshrugged/characters/
Confidence
High — Wyatt's signature visuals (derricks, the torch, the lodge) are central to the novel.