Galt is the hero and main character of Atlas Shrugged, because his principles drive the action and the conflict of the story. The book explores what occurs when the thinkers go on strike. Galt conceives of the strike, initiates it, sustains it, and carries it to a successful resolution. Part of the fascination of Atlas Shrugged is that its dominant character works behind the scenes, his existence unknown to the reader, for the first two-thirds of the novel. The question invoking his name lends a legendary quality to his character, as if he were, in part, a mythological being. In a universe populated with giants, his is the character of greatest stature. The mystery shrouding the story's unfolding conflict results from the choices he makes. The strike is necessarily secretive, so the disappearance of the world's great thinkers must be a mystery to everyone outside of Galt's circle.
Galt realizes, during the implementation of communist principles at the Twentieth Century Motor Company, that the only hope of ending the mind's exploitation is by means of a strike. His insight has the potential to usher in a new historical period — to be "epoch-making."
Ayn Rand presents Galt as a man of epic proportions. She stated that the goal of her writing was the presentation of an ideal man, and that goal is reached with the figure of John Galt. He is a man of prodigious intellectual gifts — a physicist who brings about a revolution in man's understanding of energy, a philosopher who defines a rational view of existence, and a statesman who leads a strike that transfigures the social systems of the world. Two characteristics make possible the enormity of his intellectual achievements. One is his unique genius. The other is a trait that men can replicate: his unswerving rationality. Galt describes himself as "the man who loves his life," which is accurate. But above all, he is the man who perceives reality — the man who allows nothing to interfere with his cognitive apprehension of the facts. He is characterized by reference to his "ruthlessly perceptive eyes" — the eyes that honor facts and see reality for what it is, regardless of Galt's feelings about that reality.
