be floating abstractions.
From The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
From the train, he looked back once at the skyline of the city as it flashed into sight and was held for some moments beyond the windows. The twilight had washed off the details of the buildings. They rose in thin shafts of a soft, porcelain blue, a color not of real things, but of evening and distance. They rose in bare outlines, like empty molds waiting to be filled. The distance had flattened the city. The single shafts stood immeasurably tall, out of scale to the rest of the earth. They were of their own world, and they held up to the sky the statement of what man had conceived and made possible. They were empty molds. But man had come so far; he could go farther. The city on the edge of the sky held a question—and a promise.
Here I present first a visual description by means of essentials and then the symbolic or philosophical meaning of that description.
The first part of this passage describes the city, the second part conveys the meaning. The two are tied together by the concept of “empty molds,” which is legitimate in both contexts. “They rose in bare outlines, like empty molds waiting to be filled.” This is what buildings do look like at a distance, when the details are not seen. The transition to the philosophical meaning is done in this sentence: “The single shafts stood immeasurably tall, out of scale to the rest of the
earth. They were of their own world”—this could apply both to their size and their meaning—“and they held up to the sky the statement of what man had conceived and made possible. They were empty molds. But man had come so far; he could go farther.” Here, “empty molds” is used strictly in the symbolic sense, to represent a promise.
This passage comes at the end of Part I of The Fountainhead, when Roark has to leave the city to work in the granite quarry. The meaning of the passage is therefore clear: “The city on the edge of the sky held a question—and a promise.” A question since Roark, given his position, cannot be sure of what the future holds; a promise since man (meaning Roark) “could go farther.”
What I am conveying here is the inspirational quality of the sight of the city—inspirational to Roark in the particular context of the novel; and inspirational in a wider sense, since I stress that the city is a symbol of human achievement.
This passage illustrates the method by which you can integrate, yet keep separately clear, a physical description and its philosophical meaning. Observe that the meaning is legitimately derived from the description. After describing tall buildings that rise above and out of scale to the rest of the earth, the conclusion that they represent the shape of human achievement is logically justified. (Again, keep this in mind when we come to the last quotation, from Thomas Wolfe, which follows a different method.)
From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
[The following analysis of a paragraph from Atlas Shrugged, originally given in connection with this course, was later written out by Ayn Rand herself. It is reprinted here as written (except for minor changes in punctuation).]
Clouds had wrapped the sky and had descended as fog to wrap the streets below, as if the sky were engulfing the city. She could see the whole of Manhattan Island, a long, triangular shape cutting into an invisible ocean. It looked like the prow of a sinking ship; a few tall buildings still rose above it, like funnels, but the rest was disappearing under gray-blue coils, going down slowly into vapor and space. This was how they had gone—she thought—Atlantis, the city that sank into the ocean, and all the other kingdoms that vanished, leaving the same legend in all the languages of men, and the same longing.
This description had four purposes: (1) to give an image of the view from Dagny’s window, namely, an image of what New York looks like on a foggy evening; (2) to suggest the meaning of the events which have been taking place, namely, the city as a symbol of greatness doomed to destruction; (3) to connect New York with the legend of Atlantis; (4) to convey Dagny’s mood. So the description had to be written on four levels: literal, connotative, symbolic, emotional.
The opening sentence of the description sets the key for all four levels: “Clouds had wrapped the sky and had descended