[tndarlin]

This is the chapter where Rand begins to lose me. IMHO, here is where AS begins to read like a smutty romance novel. I'm trying to be fair here: And, in all fairness, Rand was writing at a time when it was common/acceptable for Hollywood to portray men slapping women and vice-versa onscreen. Rand does make her character, Dagny, strong only in that she does not cry nor wince when she has been given a bloody lip. But, the fact that she enjoys having caused a strong reaction from Francisco isn't a sign of strength, as Rand seems to believe; it's a sign of weakness because she is measuring her self-worth by the emotional reaction she receives from him

I get an entirely different reaction to this scene. I believe they are equals and Francisco's reaction to her statement was guttural. Dagny's reaction was one of pride. Pride that he felt she was better than that and felt so passionately about that, he reacted with force. He literally slapped her out of her slip into passivity.

[Savagemom]

>>Pride that he felt she was better than that and felt so passionately about that, he reacted with force. He literally slapped her out of her slip into passivity.

I took it this way too.

(BTW, how do you do italics in HTML?)

[Tired of Taxes]

I understand your point of view on this one scene for this one chapter. There will be more on this topic in later chapters... I see you haven’t finished reading the book yet, so I don’t want to spoil anything. This was my first time reading it, too, and I pushed myself to finish reading the whole book.