Atlas Shrugged/Section133

Atlas Shrugged, Part 1, Chapter 3, section 3:     Previous Next

• Plot summary

Eddie Willers ends a long day at work by having dinner in the employees' cafeteria of the Taggart Terminal. There he meets Mystery Worker. They sit together and he tells them about the problems of the day and what Dagny Taggart is going to do to fix things. He mentions that McNamara is the contractor who will lay the new rails for the Rio Norte Line. Eddie will have many similar chats with Mystery Worker throughout the book.

The cafeteria is described as follows: "The cafeteria lay underground. It was a large room with walls of white tile that glittered in the reflections of electric lights and looked like silver brocade. It had a high ceiling, sparkling counters of glass and chromium, a sense of space and light."

This description is in sharp contrast to the most expensive barroom in New York, from Section131, that was atop a skyskraper but made to look like a cellar. The contrast gives the chapter title - The Top and the Bottom - it's irony.

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• Setting

The employees' cafeteria of the Taggart Terminal.

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• Characters

 Eddie Willers
 Mystery Worker
 Dagny Taggart: Mentioned.
 McNamara: Mentioned.
 Richard Halley: Mentioned.