What happens to Eddie Willers at the end of the novel?
The last scene to include Eddie Willers shows him stranded in the desert. At the end of the book, Eddie isn’t dead, nor necessarily even abandoned, but he also isn’t shown as having been saved. He might be rescued, or he might die in the desert. We just don’t know, because Rand doesn’t reveal what he does or what happens to him after he is stranded. This suspense is intentional: Eddie is supposed to represent the “common man,” people who aren’t inventive geniuses and leaders. His fate is left unresolved at the end of the book to reflect Rand’s belief that the fate of ordinary people depends in many ways on the actions of people like Galt, Dagny, etc. Rand described Eddie’s situation in a letter to a fan: Eddie Willers is not necessarily destined to die; in a free society, he will live happily and productively; in a collectivist society he will be the first to perish. He does not have the ability to create a new society of his own, but he is much too able and too honest ever to adjust h
