The Fountainhead P. 293-418

The Fountainhead P. 293-390

Roark is given a Commission of the Stoddard Temple, a temple for an old man with a heavy conscience who thinks a temple to god will elevate his sin. He ends up choosing Roark out of everyone else because it is advised to him by his close friend who he adores and obeys with the fanaticism of a religion, Ellsworth Toohey. Ellsworth does this, and lays the framework so that Roark will build the temple without Stoddard ever seeing it and making it publicly known to be a gift to god by man. Roark hires Steven Mallory, the man who attempted to kill Ellsworth, to make a statue for the temple, a statue of Dominique nude as the centerpiece of the temple. At first Mallory thought that Roark was like everyone else and was just doing this to destroy him a little more an amuse himself, but he sees in Roark what he saw in himself in the love for work. It also showed the hate of what society can do to people like him when he sees, “a small plaster plaque, the kind sold in cheap gift shops… A few lines, the structure of a few muscles showed a magnificent talent that could not be hidden…the rest was a deliberate attempt to be obvious…Mallory saw Roark’s hand begin to shake…the plaque shot across the room and burst to pieces against the wall. It was the only time anyone had ever seen Roark murderously angry” (Rand, 329). It showed both the appreciation that Roark had for someone with the ability to make something beautiful of their own principles like he did, and the hate he had for society making it so that they might have to bend to survive in it. Then, when Stoddard finally sees the temple, he is distraught by how, “Instead of a moos of deferential sorrow, befitting a place where on contemplates eternity and realizes the insignificance of man, this building has a quality of loose, orgiastic elation” (Rand, 339). Roark was sued to pay to reconstruct his great work of the Stoddard Temple to a home for subnormal Children. Prominent architects are chosen to reconstruct it and Roark’s career is afterward tossed greatly into the mud by this very public affair, the attacks by Ellsworth in the newspaper, The Banner, and the depression that hits America, causing a universal decline in the overall economy, including construction of new buildings.
Ellsworth’s past is revealed. It is told that he was a sickly child, who used his mind to get what he wanted and do what he wanted. He played of the emotions and secret fears and pains of those around him. His aunt commented that, “you’re a maggot, Elsie, you feed on sores… ‘Then I’ll never starve’, he answered” (Rand, 297), showing that his way of living and the demeanor that he always displays and uses had not changed from when he was a child. The one thing that essentially summed up the motive of Ellsworth was a lesson in religion that abruptly ended his devotion to it, “the teacher had been elaboration upon the text: ‘what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ Ellsworth asked: “then in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls?’” (Rand, 298). Toohey has used his compassion and his ability to show people what they need, and make them do as he has pleased all along, but it is never noticed by his victims, who always believe that it is their own idea and will to do things, and Toohey just reassured them on their course of action.
Dominique and Roark part after the Stoddard temple incident, because of the pain it inflicted on Dominique, who could feel the pain that Roark could not in what they were doing to him. She decided to test herself by putting herself through her own punishment; she quickly ends up marrying Peter Keating, making Catherine disappear as a distant memory. Keating is overjoyed after the initial shock of this actually happening, but cannot place that feeling of uncertainty he has about the reasons for the marriage.

Fountainhead xmas post 1

In this portion of the book, P. 265-293, Roark is given much publicity from the construction of the Enright house. That commission that he was almost awarded by Joel Sutton was deterred by the zealous attacks of Dominique by her articles in the Banner. As the articles and the outward attacks on Roark grow, they also develop a personal and intimate relationship, like that when they were at the quarry, only on a more frequent basis. Roark is denied many commissions by Dominique’s attacks on him in his banner, which also had an undercurrent of praise unnoticed by the public, but observed with Roark and people like Ellsworth.
For every commission that Roark was denied, Keating is awarded by the good word of Dominique. This use of her charm to help the partner of her father is seen as baffling by both Keating and Guy Francon. The true intention of Dominique in solely hurting and condemning Roark is unknown to them, just like the rest of the mainstream culture of the world.
Ellsworth is seen as thinking he is exhibiting control over Dominique in his ability to observe her affection of Roark, and thinks that it is him who planted these seeds of hate for Roark and the public attacks on him. He is still unaware of the previous relationship of Roark and Dominique so he was miscalculated in such an assumption.
While she is not mentioned in this portion, I think that it is important that Catherine, Keating’s true love, is ignored as Dominique is publicly praising and worshiping him.

The Fountainhead, 233-265

Roark gains commissions again and begins to make progress as an architect. He has his Enright House with a lot of publicity and allows him an opening to another commission with Joel Sutton, who ends with telling him that he wants him to build it, “just about almost, that is, I’ll give you a ring in a few days and we’ll have a dogfight over the contract!” (Rand, 260). He also runs into Dominique Francon again, and acts as though nothing has happened, “He knew that his absence bound her to him in a manner more complete and humiliating than his presence could enforce…she would be ready either to kill him or to come to him of her own free will. The two acts would be equal in her mind” (Rand, 252). They both seem to acknowledge this aspect in their thoughts in the book, but both refuse to speak of it to each other or to anyone else. They also help portray the mentality of Roark, by having Keating and Ellsworth discuss him briefly over tea where Keating mentions, “[Roark]’d walk over corpses. Any and all of them. All of us. But he’d be an architect” (Rand, 238), helping enforce the image that nothing and no one is more important to Roark than architecture.
Keating also progresses in this section to become closer friends with Ellsworth Toohey, and goes to meet Catherine and him over tea. He does and the day appears to be normal and routine, but in the thoughts of Keating, the beauty of what he and Catherine seems to be tainted by the presence of Ellsworth, despite his affection for him when Catherine is not around. He also builds a house for Lois Cook, who in a short passage sums up the conflict and closest thing to the source of distaste that society feels toward Roark, “They all work so hard and struggle and surer, trying to achieve beauty, trying to surpass one another in beauty. Let’s surpass them all! Let’s throw their sweat in their face. Let’s destroy them at one stroke. Let’s be gods. Let’s be ugly” (Rand, 241).
The only other key that seemed to be important was that, while Ellsworth seems to be like Keating and the conformers to society, he talks to Dominique and expresses that he understood what was unspoken between her and Roark, and that despite his ability to see the world the way they do, lives the way people like Keating do. “If you can see what you’re talking about, you can’t be what you are… Ellsworth, I think you’re a much worse person than I thought you were” (Rand, 264). It is interesting to see how his understanding of people like Roark but his attachment to people like Keating means, and I am interested to find that out.

The Fountainhead, P. 201-232

In this section Howard Roark has spend two months working in the query without any incident. Several miles away Dominique is taking her vacation alone in her father’s mansion, which is how they first meet in the book. They do not speak, but simply stare at each other for a few days when Dominique comes down to the query until they actually talk. Their feelings seem contrast with their words, showing a feeling of, “[Dominique] thought she had found an aim in life – a sudden, sweeping hatred for that man” (Rand, 205), with ‘that man’, being Howard. But they do have an attraction to one another, and while they do not become verbally intimate in this section of the book, they do become intimate in other ways. Shortly after this, Roark is given a letter of a rich man, Roger Enright, who wishes him to build a house for him, allowing him to leave his query job, and resume his role as an architect. They use this to show the relationship between them in Roark’s thoughts, “When the train started moving, [Roark] remembered Dominique and that he was leaving her behind…He was astonished only to know that he still thought of her” (Rand, 219). The relationship seems to be one of affection under a façade of contempt, but it also seems awkward and somehow not fitting the way it is expressed.
Keating had a very small portion in these pages of the book, with him working on constructing the masterpiece he had Roark help him design, the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, and contracts a sculptor named Steven Mallory, who is talented to a point that his statues of men, “looked as if he could break through the steel plate of a battleship and through any barrier whatever. It stood like a challenge…made the people around it seem smaller and sadder than usual” (Rand, 222). His work is seen like Roark’s as being to far beyond the accepted norm of the time and is fired from the commission. But after setting an appointment to finally meet with Ellsworth Toohey, through his success in the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, his x-sculptor, Steven Mallory, attempts to shoot Ellsworth for no apparent reason whatsoever. It does not phase Toohey on his façade to the people around him other than the question of why? When Keating meets with Ellsworth, he realizes that Toohey knows he did not construct the building on his own, and still seems to accept him as a close and dear friend. The only contempt that he shows for Toohey was when he mentions his niece, the only thing that Keating is truly sincere about and genuine of in affection in the whole book. This contempt shows the conflict within Keating, between what he wants, and what he thinks he should want. While he knows he wants to be with Catherine, he does all these other things to be successful, because that’s what people like Francon, Ellsworth, and his mother have all told him is what he should want.