Cherryl Brooks Taggart

Aliases: Cherryl; the dime-store girl; in society columns "Mrs. James Taggart."

Role

A working-class shop clerk who, after the John Galt Line's triumph, approaches James Taggart on the street to congratulate him as the great hero of the railroad — and is allowed by Jim, then courted by him, then married, all on the basis of a hero-worship he carefully refuses to correct. Cherryl spends her marriage piecing together the truth of who she has actually wedded, and is destroyed by the answer.

Personality / energy

Earnest, brave, idealistic, raised hard but kept clean of cynicism. Capable of loyalty to a vision of greatness; broken by the discovery that her husband's vision is the inverse. The novel's purest naïf, in the best sense.

Physical description

About twenty when introduced (Ch. 12); twenty-two by Ch. 24. Slim, fragile-looking, with a delicate skeleton. Dark brown hair, parted simply. Large blue eyes. A pale, finely cut face, mouth small and straight. Looks young even for her age.

Outfit

• At the dime store (flashback): cheap blouse and skirt, the company's small employee badge
• Wedding (Ch. 12): a simple white satin gown with a long veil
• Married society (Chs. 18, 24): restrained pale evening gowns, modest jewelry, gloves
• Final night (Ch. 24): white silk dinner dress under a thin coat in pouring rain

Visual motifs

• A dingy dime-store counter under fluorescent light
• A bride's white veil beside a portly groom
• A young woman in white silk on a wet Manhattan street under a streetlamp
• An East River bridge in rain

Power signature

Not applicable. Her "signature" is the contrast of fragile white silk against the hardness of dime-store fluorescent and rainy stone.

Chapter appearances

12, 18 (briefly), 19, 23 (briefly), 24.

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 — Cherryl's visual signature is well documented; her arc and fate are canonical.