Nathaniel

While Nathaniel is a minor character in Ayn Rand’s controversial 1947 novel of rugged individualism, “Atlas Shrugged,” he is nonetheless the man who gives the main character, Dagny Taggart, her drive and ambition. As the founder of Taggart Transcontinental, Nat Taggart rises from obscure poverty to unequaled and unapologetic rich success. Dagny Taggart struggles with the modern day consequences of her grandfather’s legacy, all the while living life on the terms he bequeathed her through her blood line: “He was a man who had never accepted the creed that others had the right to stop him.”

In 1836 Charles Dickens embarked upon a serialized string of stories about the adventures of Mr. Samuel Pickwick and friends that turned out to be so wildly popular it was shortly thereafter published as a novel, his first – “Pickwick Papers.” Among the three companions of Mr. Pickwick is the beleaguered Nathaniel Winkle, a young man who fancies himself quite the sportsman, but is, in fact, hilariously inept around guns and animals. In the gently humorous hands of his creator, Mr. Winkle is an object of fun, but a most delightful one.

A white child raised by the Delaware tribe of Native Americans, Nathaniel “Natty” Bumppo is the protagonist of James Fennimore Cooper’s so-called “Leatherstocking Tales”, five books published between 1827 and 1841, depicting a life led between two worlds. Over the course of his long and lonely lifetime, Natty bridges the gap between civilization and so-called “savagery”. He is a complicated man leading a simple life, with an enduring respect for the wilderness that is fast vanishing and the way of life that goes with it, yet with a foot in the opposing camp of Western European imposed class and societal structures. The books have inspired many movies based on his character, and the book and TV series gave us the enduring and endearing character of “Hawkeye” (one of Natty’s Indian nicknames) in M*A*S*H.