James Taggart

Aliases: Jim; "Mr. Taggart"; "the President of Taggart Transcontinental"; in regime circles "our Mr. Taggart."

Role

President of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad. Dagny's older brother. The novel's representative looter — a man with the title and salary of an industrialist who in fact knows how to do nothing except trade favors with bureaucrats. Husband (briefly) of Cherryl Brooks; ultimately reduced to drunken self-revelation in Ch. 24.

Personality / energy

Whining, self-pitying, evasive, theatrically humble in public, vicious in private. Hates the producers around him because they imply his own emptiness. The novel's clearest portrait of "the second-handed mind."

Physical description

About forty. Above average height (~6'0") but slack-shouldered, almost stooped. Thinning sandy hair receding from a high forehead. Soft, doughy features — a weak chin, a pursed soft mouth, gray-green eyes Rand calls "small and dim." Sallow complexion. Carries his weight badly.

Outfit

• Office: an expensive but ill-fitting dark three-piece suit, white shirt, a fashionable tie that never quite sits right; a gold pocket watch
• Society: white tie and tails worn with discomfort; sweat at the collar
• Late nights: dinner jacket loosened, decanter in hand
• Wedding (Ch. 12): white tie, ill-fitting

Visual motifs

• A wood-paneled office with a green-shaded banker's lamp
• A sweating temple under a chandelier
• A decanter and a glass on a polished side-table
• A man slumped in an upholstered armchair

Power signature

Not applicable. His "signature" is dim green desk-lamp light and a sweating face under chandeliers.

Chapter appearances

1, 3, 5 (panic), 6, 7, 12, 17, 24, 27, 28.

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 — Jim's physical and behavioral signature is one of the most fully drawn looter portraits in the novel.