Howard Roark begins with his first commission of the house. He begins to construct the house of Heller, when Mike shows up to work on the job. The job of a single house is a small job compared to what jobs he normally works on, “And you think it’s a come-down? Well, maybe it is. And maybe it’s the other way around” (Rand, 134). Roark completes the house of Heller without much incident other than a visit by Keating to help with designs for a contest, and receives another commission for a gas station on a road in sight of Heller’s house. His reasoning for having the house built was simple, “I like it. It makes sense to me. And then again I figured everybody’ [s gaping at it and talking about it”, and such publicity would be beneficial to business. So Roark was given a second commission to work on, as well as a shot at the commission for a Whitford Sanborn, a man who had a store built by Henry Cameron, who wanted a house like “Cameron would do it” (Rand, 167). Shortly after this initial success of Roark also has a commission for the Enright house, a large commission by a corporation that wanted something different. He worked long and hard on this commission, trying to get it accepted by the committee, long enough that the money form his older commissions dried up and he had not worked on another house for almost six months. With dollars left to his name, however, they decide to grant him the commission under the condition that the façade of the building be changed to something more acceptable, and Howard cannot accept such a thing. Rather than take the commission. He lets his money run out, closes up the office he had, and gets a job through Mike in Francon’s granite mine.
Keating becomes a partner with the death of Heyer, whom Keating helped along by confronting him about using the corporations funds for personal use. He also has a moment when he thinks of marrying Catherine, but his mother disperses such a thought within the night he had it and they postpone getting married until Keating has a secure position with Francon and his results from the competition come in. When Keating does win, however, they do not afterwards mention them getting married in a rush. He does, however, begin going out on frequent dates with Dominique Francon, who detests him but likes to see him try in vain.
Overall, this section of the book has the progress of Keating to a partner and the failure of Roark in his private business. It helps highlight the inverse relationship between Roark and Keating, how one becomes successful when the other comes upon troubled times. They both also have a death, one of which was devastating to them and the other that brought a feeling of happiness and success. This also brings a close to the section of the book labeled “Part I”
30.11.07
23.11.07
The Fountainhead, Chapters 6–10
Howard Roark is faced with a long period of struggle and grief in this period of the book. His employer and idealist in architecture, Henry Cameron, is forced to close his business and leave practice, putting Howard out of work. Immediately, however, Peter Keating scoops up Roark and gets him at Francon & Heyer. Because of his hate for destroying his work by making it acceptable to others, he only does the engineering and other than the chief of the engineering department who stated, “‘you’ve got more sense than I gave you credit for, Keating. Thanks.’ ‘For what?’ asked Keating? ‘For nothing intentional, I’m sure’, said the Chief” (Rand, 90). He also makes friends with a construction worker named Mike, who detests normal architects, but is fond of Roark for his genuine passion and a friend after saying, “Only one…that knew building. I worked for him when I was your age…Henry Cameron was his name” (Rand, 92). But after an altercation with Francon directly when Keating is away, Roark is fired for refusing to so a butchered version of Cameron’s work for a wealthy client. And after this he is forced to look for a job, and spends five months searching in vain, but eventually gets taken in by a John Erik Snyte, who wanted him for a “modernistic” perspective on building, having one from classic, gothic, renaissance and miscellaneous. After working for several months a character, Austen Heller, asks for a modernistic house that he wants to be “alive”, and when Roark shows him his sketch for which he is fired, Heller leaves with him, giving him the commission of his house and a $500 check to start his own business made out to “Howard Roark, Architect” (Rand, 128).
Keating has an easy period in this book. He has many commissions after a designer strike. He mentions to Catherine, his longtime crush who he always goes to months of time apart to, that they are engaged, and that makes both of them very happy. He also meets the daughter of Guy Francon, Dominique Francon, who is in personality, very close to Howard Roark, in the remark of her words, but much better in a social situation than him. She is not liked by her father, but seems to be liked by Peter, probably as a way of advancing his career.
The only other major character is Ellsworth Toohey, who writes for the Wynand paper, The Banner, and writes on both the retirement of Henry Cameron and of the builder’s union strike. On the strike, Keating heard the speech of Toohey, “He did not hear what the voice was saying. He heard the beauty of the sounds without meaning. He felt no need to know the meaning; he could accept anything, he would be led blindly anywhere” (Rand, 109), showing the influence that Toohey seemed to have over his readers and people around him, including his niece Catherine. He preached about the need of unity and essentially the necessity of people to conform to one another, and obey the standards that society sets for them. His work on Cameron, on the other hand, showed him as insignificant and that his downfall was inevitable, stating the Latin phrase, “vox populi vox Dei”, (Rand, 79), meaning ‘the voice of people [is] the voice of god’ which seems to be a phrase holding some irony in it, considering its origin “And those people should not be listened to who keep saying, 'The voice of the people [is] the voice of God,' since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” (Alcuin). This word is much like the word utopia, meaning ‘a perfect society’, because of a book written about such a place, but the actual translation of utopia from Greek means, ‘no place’. Considering that Toohey is said to be well educated and knowledgeable of many things, he probably knows this and probably implies some deeper meaning by saying this. While most seem to admire the words of Toohey, some like Keating show some subtle hints of distaste in what he does to Catherine and how he changed her, “he wanted to be angry, but he saw her twinkling smile, her new kind of fire, and he had to smile” (Rand, 84). I think that Toohey seems to show the exact kind of thing that characters like Keating do, conforming to succeed, being the same things that people like Roark cannot bring themselves to do.
Keating has an easy period in this book. He has many commissions after a designer strike. He mentions to Catherine, his longtime crush who he always goes to months of time apart to, that they are engaged, and that makes both of them very happy. He also meets the daughter of Guy Francon, Dominique Francon, who is in personality, very close to Howard Roark, in the remark of her words, but much better in a social situation than him. She is not liked by her father, but seems to be liked by Peter, probably as a way of advancing his career.
The only other major character is Ellsworth Toohey, who writes for the Wynand paper, The Banner, and writes on both the retirement of Henry Cameron and of the builder’s union strike. On the strike, Keating heard the speech of Toohey, “He did not hear what the voice was saying. He heard the beauty of the sounds without meaning. He felt no need to know the meaning; he could accept anything, he would be led blindly anywhere” (Rand, 109), showing the influence that Toohey seemed to have over his readers and people around him, including his niece Catherine. He preached about the need of unity and essentially the necessity of people to conform to one another, and obey the standards that society sets for them. His work on Cameron, on the other hand, showed him as insignificant and that his downfall was inevitable, stating the Latin phrase, “vox populi vox Dei”, (Rand, 79), meaning ‘the voice of people [is] the voice of god’ which seems to be a phrase holding some irony in it, considering its origin “And those people should not be listened to who keep saying, 'The voice of the people [is] the voice of God,' since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” (Alcuin). This word is much like the word utopia, meaning ‘a perfect society’, because of a book written about such a place, but the actual translation of utopia from Greek means, ‘no place’. Considering that Toohey is said to be well educated and knowledgeable of many things, he probably knows this and probably implies some deeper meaning by saying this. While most seem to admire the words of Toohey, some like Keating show some subtle hints of distaste in what he does to Catherine and how he changed her, “he wanted to be angry, but he saw her twinkling smile, her new kind of fire, and he had to smile” (Rand, 84). I think that Toohey seems to show the exact kind of thing that characters like Keating do, conforming to succeed, being the same things that people like Roark cannot bring themselves to do.
16.11.07
The Fountainhead Chapters 3-5
In these chapters the role models of Howard Roark and Peter Keating. They introduce the large architect firm, Francon & Heyer, who is a big name in the architect business, and employs many up and coming architects, including Peter Keating. The other is Henry Cameron, a washed up drunk, who has very few commissions and even less that Security Trust Company will approve for construction.
Peter begins to work in a room filled with many other architects who quickly like and trust him. He quickly becomes friends with the owner Guy Francon, after he takes the bold step of critiquing the works of one of his superiors directly with him. “Keating knew that he had taken a terrible chance and won; he became frightened by the chance after he knew he had won” (Rand 42). By playing off of the flaws of his peers he advanced himself over the two years that these chapters depict, and tossed out the others who stood in his way. He took the other designer with Tim Davis, and took over his work in the premise of giving him time to spend with his new wife, when in reality he blames him whenever something is late because of him being a newly wed, or him not being on task. This ended with him being fired and Keating getting the position. He then did the same for the head of the architect department Stengel, landing him a commission to start his own firm, clearing the spot for Keating to fill. The key this shows is that the people in Francon & Heyer don’t advance by demonstration of skill, as another designer pointed out Keating’s first day, “Francon hell…he hasn’t designed a doghouse in eights…Stengel. He does all the work” (Rand39). It shows the talent less and the undeserving advancement of people playing by the mainstream rules of society. They also regard the opinions of others very highly, taking the words of the architect critic, Ellsworth M. Toohey. They show the necessity of the gratitude of others, probably from the fact that they do not progress from their talent, but their ability to suppress others who surpass them.
Howard Roark under Henry Cameron, on the other hand, had a workroom with two drawers working under Henry Cameron. Cameron chooses to hire Roark not based on the recommendation of others, or the fact he was expelled form Stanton, or that he had only been in New York for a day, but that he had work to show for it in his sketches to show his work. Roark didn’t take the job to get paid, because there wasn’t much to get from a firm not doing a lot of work, but that he knew he could learn from Cameron and that he had once been like him, resenting society. They both think, “Men hate passion, any great passion… [Henry Cameron] had nothing but a faith he held merely because it was his own” (Rand 45). Roark also expresses a dislike with the way things are, “I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things on earth. I want to change them” (Rand 49). He learns how so better create things his own way, refining the designing methods he created out of raw necessity of a building and with the help of Henry Cameron, made them even more efficient. This work shows a desire for a purpose higher than material gain, an actual love of their work and a desire to work just to express it that way.
Peter begins to work in a room filled with many other architects who quickly like and trust him. He quickly becomes friends with the owner Guy Francon, after he takes the bold step of critiquing the works of one of his superiors directly with him. “Keating knew that he had taken a terrible chance and won; he became frightened by the chance after he knew he had won” (Rand 42). By playing off of the flaws of his peers he advanced himself over the two years that these chapters depict, and tossed out the others who stood in his way. He took the other designer with Tim Davis, and took over his work in the premise of giving him time to spend with his new wife, when in reality he blames him whenever something is late because of him being a newly wed, or him not being on task. This ended with him being fired and Keating getting the position. He then did the same for the head of the architect department Stengel, landing him a commission to start his own firm, clearing the spot for Keating to fill. The key this shows is that the people in Francon & Heyer don’t advance by demonstration of skill, as another designer pointed out Keating’s first day, “Francon hell…he hasn’t designed a doghouse in eights…Stengel. He does all the work” (Rand39). It shows the talent less and the undeserving advancement of people playing by the mainstream rules of society. They also regard the opinions of others very highly, taking the words of the architect critic, Ellsworth M. Toohey. They show the necessity of the gratitude of others, probably from the fact that they do not progress from their talent, but their ability to suppress others who surpass them.
Howard Roark under Henry Cameron, on the other hand, had a workroom with two drawers working under Henry Cameron. Cameron chooses to hire Roark not based on the recommendation of others, or the fact he was expelled form Stanton, or that he had only been in New York for a day, but that he had work to show for it in his sketches to show his work. Roark didn’t take the job to get paid, because there wasn’t much to get from a firm not doing a lot of work, but that he knew he could learn from Cameron and that he had once been like him, resenting society. They both think, “Men hate passion, any great passion… [Henry Cameron] had nothing but a faith he held merely because it was his own” (Rand 45). Roark also expresses a dislike with the way things are, “I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things on earth. I want to change them” (Rand 49). He learns how so better create things his own way, refining the designing methods he created out of raw necessity of a building and with the help of Henry Cameron, made them even more efficient. This work shows a desire for a purpose higher than material gain, an actual love of their work and a desire to work just to express it that way.
9.11.07
The Fountainhead,Chapter 1 & 2
Howard Roark, a 22 year old architect, seems to make everyone around him quite uncomfortable. He does regard the ideals of anyone around him, or anything taught to him without a direct purpose. The book opens up with him getting expelled from the college he attended, the Stanton Institute of Technology. He was expelled, not for his failure to perform, but more in spite of the fact that he, “[having] been excellent in all the engineering sciences”(Rand, 21), but for the fact that he does not use what is called “styles” of art or actual defined methods to construct. He also seems fine with the idea of this happening, “I have nothing further to learn here”, being the way for him to express himself at the Dean’s prospect of him returning in a later year after he has, “grown up”. Overall, this main character seems to show ideals of nonconformist, not caring for anyone else’s thoughts on him or on anyone else. However, this far in to a book, one cannot be entirely sure of that but from what I can perceive, Howard Roark seems to be a great example of individuality. What helps make this inital distinction about Howard Roark is not only his attatude, but the setting of external conflict the author places the main chacter. By puttin him in a carreer that has strong foundations on tradition and following others, the author has set up a strong beginning to create conflict for the rest of what appers to be a lengthy book.
2.11.07
A Clockwork Orange
The Clockwork Orange, by: Anthony Burgess has a constant struggle of the individual going against what society wants the main character Alex, to conform to. From the beginning of the book to the start of the final chapter, Alex is considered a , “common criminal”(Burgess, 92), and is even convicted of murder when he is fifteen years old. But after the initial break with his way of life against society’s rules, the book also brings up the concept of free will to always choose what you are when the government tries to reform him by taking away his ability to choose to do what they consider bad.
Alex is a fifteen year old bully in a gang of four including himself, who does nothing more than bully the old, fight other gangs and rob people of their innocence. Any principles the society tried to impose Alex completely disregarded. He also saw the world and beyond as all the same, as can be seen in his response to his friend Dim’s question to what’s out there in the universe, “There’ll be life like down here most likely, which some getting knifed and others doing the knifing”. In the first hundred pages of the book Alex commits many crimes (two breaking and entering, eight assaults, Three rapes and two murders), and yet all he feels from these actions is exhilaration. Near the end of the book Alex sat and listened to music thinking of how , “it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum…I could viddy myself very clear running and running on like very light and mysterious nogas carving the whole listo of the creeching world with my cut-throat britva” (Burgess, 179), expressing his desire for nothing more then to cause pain to other human beings to feel the same joy that he feels from the listening of Beethoven’s Ninth. Alex’s actions to rebel against society by breaking all of its laws and regulations are fueled by his elation in the pain and the suffering of others. Furthering his experience as society making him a part of it was when he was in jail they took away his name and gave him a number to identify him, 6655321. Alex and his sole purpose to live life his own way would be almost transcendentalist if it weren’t such a narcissistic way of live.
The larger fight between the individual and society when the government in the book actually takes away Alex’s ability to break the law by giving him injections and making him watch films of horrific crimes. The major concept that this procedure (known in the book as the Ludovico’s Technique), is that it physically makes the person sick if they think of hurting someone, think in a violent way, or even watch violence. This made it so that, “the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get hit than give it” (Burgess, 121), and that even though by society he was doing right, it really wasn’t him doing it because he had no choice in the matter. If he has not say in the matter, then its not a choice and its simply the government controlling him, not him conforming. While in normal society it feels like there is no other option, for Alex, there literally became only one thing he could do that wouldn’t make him fall to the ground in pain. Overall, society crept from setting the standard of what is the right way to live, to making it so that people can only live the way they want, turning people into, “your true Christian…ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly” (Burgess, 129). In this way, the book shows how society changes people, a unique organic thing, into a piece of machinery that is only allowed to respond a certain way to a certain situation. The point that this stripping of choice makes us consider the question, “Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?” (Burgess, 95), to which the answer that free will is obviously the only correct answer. Because as a people, what is right and wrong is continually changed, modified, and redefined. However, no matter what the change of belief has been, it has always been the peoples choice to accept these changes or not. There is a sharp difference between bending to a law, and a law that makes you bend.
Overall this book had a concept that not everyone fits into the mold of society, and that it’s not right to try to make them. Alex was made miserable by this attempt of the government to make him good, and nearly drove him to end his life. “The heresy of an age of reason…’I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong” (Burgess, 116).
Alex is a fifteen year old bully in a gang of four including himself, who does nothing more than bully the old, fight other gangs and rob people of their innocence. Any principles the society tried to impose Alex completely disregarded. He also saw the world and beyond as all the same, as can be seen in his response to his friend Dim’s question to what’s out there in the universe, “There’ll be life like down here most likely, which some getting knifed and others doing the knifing”. In the first hundred pages of the book Alex commits many crimes (two breaking and entering, eight assaults, Three rapes and two murders), and yet all he feels from these actions is exhilaration. Near the end of the book Alex sat and listened to music thinking of how , “it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum…I could viddy myself very clear running and running on like very light and mysterious nogas carving the whole listo of the creeching world with my cut-throat britva” (Burgess, 179), expressing his desire for nothing more then to cause pain to other human beings to feel the same joy that he feels from the listening of Beethoven’s Ninth. Alex’s actions to rebel against society by breaking all of its laws and regulations are fueled by his elation in the pain and the suffering of others. Furthering his experience as society making him a part of it was when he was in jail they took away his name and gave him a number to identify him, 6655321. Alex and his sole purpose to live life his own way would be almost transcendentalist if it weren’t such a narcissistic way of live.
The larger fight between the individual and society when the government in the book actually takes away Alex’s ability to break the law by giving him injections and making him watch films of horrific crimes. The major concept that this procedure (known in the book as the Ludovico’s Technique), is that it physically makes the person sick if they think of hurting someone, think in a violent way, or even watch violence. This made it so that, “the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get hit than give it” (Burgess, 121), and that even though by society he was doing right, it really wasn’t him doing it because he had no choice in the matter. If he has not say in the matter, then its not a choice and its simply the government controlling him, not him conforming. While in normal society it feels like there is no other option, for Alex, there literally became only one thing he could do that wouldn’t make him fall to the ground in pain. Overall, society crept from setting the standard of what is the right way to live, to making it so that people can only live the way they want, turning people into, “your true Christian…ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly” (Burgess, 129). In this way, the book shows how society changes people, a unique organic thing, into a piece of machinery that is only allowed to respond a certain way to a certain situation. The point that this stripping of choice makes us consider the question, “Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?” (Burgess, 95), to which the answer that free will is obviously the only correct answer. Because as a people, what is right and wrong is continually changed, modified, and redefined. However, no matter what the change of belief has been, it has always been the peoples choice to accept these changes or not. There is a sharp difference between bending to a law, and a law that makes you bend.
Overall this book had a concept that not everyone fits into the mold of society, and that it’s not right to try to make them. Alex was made miserable by this attempt of the government to make him good, and nearly drove him to end his life. “The heresy of an age of reason…’I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong” (Burgess, 116).
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