At age 23, this is Rand’s first attempt at in English to plan a novel:
David Harriamn describes it in The Journals of Ayn Rand as:
Its theme is that humanity - warped by a corrupt philosophy - is destroying the best in man for the sake of enshrining mediocrity. By far AR’s most malevolent story.
She writes:
All the “realistic” books have shown the bad side of life and, as good, have shown the good of today. They have denounced that which is accepted as bad and set up as a relief or example that which is accepted as good. I want to show that there is no good at present, that the “good” as it is now understood is worse than bad, that it is only the result
Danny Renahan is a character in this story, who is, in part, modeled after William Hickman.
She describes Danny in her notes. Some of the description:
Imperious. Impatient. Uncompromising. Untamable. Intolerant. Unadaptable.
An extreme “extremist”
He grows up lonely, hating everybody and being hated by everybody
Show his battle with the world. He is too impatient to toil slowly through the years for the things he wants. Too uncompromising to succeed in the way of the popular men who know how to get along with those in power. Too intolerant to “get along” with anybody. Too passionate not to burn with disgust for life as he sees it and with humiliation at not being above the mob, crushing it under his feet, giving it orders instead of trying to satisfy it, of crawling before it for its good graces. He is unable to understand how he can act and live as an equal with those he knows to be inferior to him, those he despises and had a right to despise.
A man that can slash with an [ax], but can’t saw patiently.
Stone-hard. Monstrously cruel. Brazenly daring. No respect for anything or anyone.
His mind is brilliant enough to see the ridiculous side of everything. He gets immense enjoyment from shocking people, amusing them with his cynicism, [ridiculing] before their eyes the most sacred, venerated, established ideas. He takes a real delight in opposing people, in fighting and terrifying them. He has no ambition to be a benefactor or popular hero for mankind. […] Subconsciously, this is the result of a noble feeling of superiority, which knows that to be loved by the mob is an insult and that to be hated is the highest compliment it can pay you.
The setting, the context Little Street’s world in which Danny was in, Rand wrote in her journals about: “The world as it is.” “life at present” “Show them the real, one and only horror - the horror of mediocrity” “Show that the world is nothing but a little street. That this little street is its king and master, its essence and spirit. Show the little street and how it works.”
Harriman wrote in regards to these notes of Rand’s “it seems likely that they were made over a short period when she was feeling particularly bitter towards the world”.
One of several characters also in it, is a pastor:
Rand writes that subconsciously he has:
Not the kind of passion for power that says “ I want to rule because I know I am superior to others and I must dominate them”; but the kind that says: “I know that I am inferior and therefore I don’t want to let anything superior exist.”
In the story, Danny:
shoots him straight in the face, mad with loathing and the desire to destroy him. He then shoots the rest of the bullets into the body, in his hatred and fury to kill. After that - no regrets, no remorse whatsoever.
I haven’t seen an actual topic about The Little Street, most had to do with who she had modeled Danny in part after, William Hickman.
I like studying Rand’s transition in her writing, from Danny, to first edition We The Living Kira, all the way up to Galt himself in Atlas Shrugged, the methods, actions, the setting/context in which the characters are all in.
So, this thread is open discussion on anything and everything that has to do with her notes on The Little Street.
In her notes about who Danny was, in part, modeled after, Hickman:
Adela Rogers St.-Johns cleverly noted that Hickman is an extremist, a type that can either be very good or very bad. This is true and the idea of the “extremist” is splendid. We should have more extremists - then life wouldn’t be what it is. But she says that “an extremist is always dangerous” and we all should be just in between, the “golden mean”, the balanced average. This is a wonderful expression of the view exactly opposite from mine. What I want to show in my book is just the horror of that middle. For if men were extremists they would follow each idea and feeling to its end, they would be faithful to their purposes and to themselves, they would be clear, straight, and absolute in everything. And they wouldn’t tolerate a lot of what is tolerated now. This is just what we need.
For this reason I admire Hickman and every extremist.
This is what my book is going to say. Extremist beyond all extreme is what we need