Fountainhead End

This section is the end of what is without a doubt the largest and most insightful book I have read in my four years of high school. The book ends with the trial of Howard Roark, which is similar to the last trial in some of its aspects. Howard does not call any witnesses and issues no statement until the end. There was a comment, however, on his choice of jurors, “Roark had chosen the hardest faces” (Rand, 675), who were engineers, mathematicians, truck drivers, bricklayers electricians, gardeners and factory workers. There was much testimony of many people, but the only ones mentioned were Keating, the officer who found Roark, the warden who Dominique distracted, and then Roark’s closing statement to the jury. The statement was the only piece of real merit in the many pages this trial took up, it summed up in elegant words the ideal of man and how it had been contorted: “man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal – under the thread that sadism was his only alternative” (Rand, 681). He also pointed out how the great mind must struggle against the many for his idea to survive; “thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light…the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build” (Rand, 677-678). He supports the ideas of the individual and points out the flaws with a selfless society and the wrongs of such idealists, “Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive…The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere “(Rand, 683). And apparently the jury that Roark had selected agreed with him in less than an hour, because in the end, Roark is found not guilty of committing any crime and released.

The rest of the book resolved the loose ends of the story. Wayward divorced Dominique, who is now with Roark, and was forced by law to re-hire Ellsworth. To this Wayward said, “We must comply with the law” (Rand, 687), and orders him to be on the job before nine o’clock. After no more than ten minutes at his desk Ellsworth is startled by the screeching halt of the Banner’s presses. To this, Wayward says, “It’s nine o’clock. You’re out of a job, Mr. Toohey. The Banner has ceased to exist” (Rand, 688). Wayward also has one last gesture, by calling Roark to his office, and telling him he is to build the Wayward Building, the largest in New York, “as a monument to that spirit which is yours…and could have been mine” (Rand, 692). The meeting has a feeling of sadness because in it Wayward expresses no desire to ever see Roark again, and the look on his face to be, “know, closed and never to be reached again. A face that held no pain of renunciation, but the stamp of the next step, when even pain is renounced” (Rand, 690).

This ending is bitter, but I feel it is fitting for the contrast of the theme of the book. The character that had no fear of others and let himself follow his own path ended up happy with what he wanted, work, his identity, pride, and a wife of Dominique. Whereas Wayward wanted the same thing, but sacrificed his pride to try and reach the others, and lost a part of his empire and all or the other two.

The Fountainhead p. 663-673

In this section, Wayward has been broken by the Banner, committee and the fallout of this is what this deals with. The repercussions of this caving of Wayward, are not limited by any chance. They spur Wayward to not want to see or speak to Roark, who is willing to forgive him, but as Wayward had said in the last section, he cannot be forgiven. The only major event of concern was the reuniting of Roark and Dominique in their old relationship of couple, that being the closest word to describe their relationship. Dominique also plans to extract revenge on Wayward, by calling in police and reporters to look for a “missing sapphire ring” (Rand, 668). This is then spread to every newspaper, including the Banner to do damage to Wayward and to help him “a story that will build circulation” (Rand, 671). Roark’s comment on her actions being, “a more thorough job of dynamiting than Cortlandt”, is very accurate, because with this act she has destroyed what little Wayward thought he still had that he held dear: Dominique. When Wayward hears of this he is not openly showing his hurt and doesn’t seem to be able to break and cave as Dominique had wanted him to her yelling at him, “God damn you! If you can take it like this, you had no right to become what you became” to which he responded, “that’s why I’m taking it” (Rand, 671). Wayward’s character has seemed to been broken by his giving in to others and that he will no longer be an individual, but the kind of person he and Roark detested: a second-hander.

The Fountainhead p. 654-663

In this section Wayward meets with the Banner board, where they try to get him to give in to the demands of the Union before the Banner collapses. They argue with Wayward over the issue and the purpose of the strike not being important enough to lose money over, and the dislike with Wayward owning 51% of the business so no one else has a say in how its run. In the end Wayward gives in to their demands, breaking for the first time, on all of the issues but one: the re-hiring of Ellsworth. He would not cede that to him but let them reverse the Cortlandt position, and take the other two writers back. “He thought about the moment in his bedroom when he had almost pulled the trigger. He knew he was pulling it now” (Rand, 658). Wayward giving in to the demand of society was the same as how he always did what others wanted in the pursuit of power, but now he knows that he can never defy the public opinion or his power disappears and he will not be able to defend Roark or anything else he holds sacred. In the end he is aimlessly walking the streets, thinking, “Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness. Alvah Scarret can be forgiven. He had nothing to betray. Mitchell Layton can be forgiven. But not I. I was not born to be a second-hander” (Rand, 663)

The Fountainhead p. 640-654

In this section Ellsworth defies Ellsworth by taking a stand against Roark and the Cortlandt bombing in the Banner when Wayward is out on a business trip and Alvah was out sick. In it he condemns Howard and takes the opinion of everyone else in the press industry. For this he is fired from the Banner, but the repercussions of this were far beyond what Wayward anticipated. The Banner Union, that Ellsworth helped set up, walked out on strike, and while “the membership was small – and crucial; it included all his key men, not the big executives, but the rank below, expertly chosen, the active ones…most of them had been hired in the last eight years; recommended by Mr. Toohey” (Rand, 644). This explosion of a strike and the firing of the Banner further shot down the sales of the Banner, along with the difficulty of editing and running the newspaper when no respectable press members would work for them.

As the Banner is falling apart and not helping Roark, Ellsworth has a brief talk with Wayward before he is removed from the building. The idea he conveys to him tells him how he is not capable of obtaining power because he doesn’t have the stomach for it, and that, “Money is power, is it Mr. Wayward? Power over men? You poor amateur! You never discovered the nature of your own ambition or you’d have known that you weren’t fit for it. You couldn’t use the methods required and you wouldn’t want the results” (Rand644). This contrast of power through force and wealth against mind and conscience shows the contrast of how the individual tries to control the masses whereas a man of the masses tries to lead them. The result of the strike should show which of the two has a more effective means of control, and will add to the conflict of one going against the many.

The Fountainhead p. 630-640

Ellsworth comes to Peter Keating’s house as he has not left and has not seen anyone since Howard has been arrested. He did this to ensure he would not betray Howard, and exactly why Ellsworth came to see him. He pressures him and after some resistance of what little will Peter managed to still have, he gives Ellsworth the paper that Roark signed with him over the contract. And Ellsworth has a mixed response to this, “You’re a complete success, Peter, as far as I’m concerned. But as times I have to want to turn away from the sight of my successes” (Rand, 633).

The rest of this chapter was the elaboration of what Ellsworth truly wants out of all of this, the masterminding behind all the organizations and groups he helps forms but draws no power from. He wants to control the world by the conscience of the people. “I shall rule…You. The world. It’s only a matter of discovering the lever. If you can learn how to rule one single man’s soul, you can get the rest of mankind” (Rand, 635). He also elaborates on the means to this end of his. By making selflessness a virtue, it kills the aspirations of people, considering that, “Not a single [man] has ever achieved [selflessness] and not a single one ever will” (Rand, 635), and that by promoting the things that people should not follow, they then find people worshiping an ideal they cannot follow and make themselves feel insignificant and then willing to follow others who appear to be selfless, such as Ellsworth. He also preaches the use of serving and sacrifices as virtuous, and points out how this helps gain power for a man like him as well. “It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And he intends to be the master” (Rand, 637). He elaborates on many other aspects of how he feels the will of people can be bent and molded, but all have the common denominator by glorifying things that have not value to oneself but in the eyes of another, and no one is truly happy, “Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient…Happy men are free men” (Rand, 636), and so by making people feel that happiness is only achievable in the serving of others, it breaks their spirit because they become unhappy on something people tell them should make them feel good.

The concept in general of what current society holds sacred calls many values of society into question. We have many systems where the many help the few, both within regions and around the world, for the sole purpose of helping our fellow man. We also glorify lifestyles of loving and caring, but not in the sense of making oneself happy by what one wants, but by a standard of morals that society tells us is what we should want and desire. This issue of where one’s morals come from; if one’s morals and ideals do not come from within, does it not stand to reason that one is without morals at all? No man’s conviction should change based on the opinions of others if they are truly his, but rarely in society is this the case. To succeed in any political or public light, one must make their ideas embody what everyone else wants them to be, regardless of what they truly believe. Many people who hold their convictions will not move through society or survive. Galileo had to renounce his works because it went against the church, the strongest power in the world at the time. Darwin was ridiculed for decades for his idea of evolution, which some still argue over today. People will not value ideas by their own worth, but by what everyone else says their worth, and that is one of the biggest problems with our society.

The Fountainhead p. 616-630

Dominique is saved from her near death experience and is brought back to Wayward’s Penthouse to recover. When she regained consciousness, Wayward was there, “he looked amused…she remembered seeing him as the hospital. He had not looked amused then” (Rand, 617). This shows how Wayward is attached to Dominique in a way that losing her would destroy him. Howard sees her later in the day and she has already been told by Wayward that he stayed at the scene, was arrested, and is out on bail, posted by Wayward. Howard tells her that if he is acquitted, then they can finally be together, but if he is convicted, then she is to stay with Wayward, because, “he and you will need each other” (Rand, 620). Howard is very caring of both Dominique and Wayward, as can be seen in him planning to keep them happy if the worst comes, but it also shows how he is unbending and uncaring of his own well being over the ideals he holds. He would gladly sit in jail for the sake of preventing the destruction of his work.

Wayward begins a crusade for Roark, going against every other popular opinion and hurting the sale and popularity of his paper to do so. “He was granted the impossible, the dream of every man” the chance and intensity of youth, to be used with the wisdom of experience” (Rand, 624). Many people try to persuade Wayward of his unpopular stand defending Roark.

Toohey is also mentioned here briefly in the end, as now being ready thanks to “the right moment….handed to me on a sliver platter” (Rand, 629), to take over The Banner. How he plans to do so is not elaborated on, but it seems as though he has a plan in mind.

The Fountainhead P. 608-616

Howard and Wayward return from their long journey to find a dramatic change. The Cortlandt housing project is already under construction and while, “the building had the skeleton of what Roark had designed” (Rand, 608), but despite the efforts of Keating to fight off the forces of influence, the building was butchered and had “the remnants of ten different breeds piled on the lovely symmetry of the bones” (Rand, 608). This is the example it once again being ‘too late’, for Keating to change what he is; a second-hander. This time, however, he has dragged Howard’s unbending mind and body into it. Because he cannot conform to society, he also cannot allow his ideas to be shaped by it so long as he has the power to fight back. It’s this exact mindset that makes Howard his own person, and what propels him to seek Dominique’s help in distracting the warden of the Cortlandt housing project as he blows it off the face of the earth.

This portion also exhibits a change in Dominique, who has always been afraid of seeing Roark hurt by society, as she was at the Stoddard trial. Here she is in control, and not phased by society being able to hurt Roark, “She was free and he knew it”(Rand, 613). But in her following of orders of Roark to hide in a ditch until after the explosion and “see that your found in the car and that your condition matches its condition – approximately”, she returned to the car and, “slashed the skin of her neck, her legs, her arms. What she felt was not pain…she was free…She did not know she had cut an artery” (Rand, 616). And with this line they end the chapter, Dominique free of her fears of the world as she is almost leaving it and Roark not letting his work be butchered.

The Fountainhead P. 583-608

Wayward promotes Howard in his papers vigorously, dropping his name anywhere possible to give him attention. While he does it in an attempt to promote the popularity of Howard among the readers of the Banner, he is more hurt by the publicity of it, seen as “Wayward’s pet” (Rand, 590). He also got Roark commissions, “whose owners were open to pressure” (Rand, 591), trying to help Roark change the world, one building at a time.
Howard is becoming very exhausted, as he is constructing not only his regular commissions, but the housing project, the Cortlandt Homes, for Peter Keating. He finishes the project and has it accepted, but Wayward, seeing the design asks him about it, “Do you think I pick the things in my art gallery by their signatures? If Peter Keating designed this, I’ll eat every copy of today’s Banner” (Rand, 587). But Roark would not tell Gail why he did the project for Peter, or even admit that he had done it, keeping his word that he would not tell anyone about the agreement they had made. After completing the project, he goes out with Gail on his yacht to rest, admitting that, “I’ve overdone it” (Rand, 601), as he leaves for a few months. In this time Gail and Howard dissect the things that make society into something as ugly as it is. They end up calling the source of it the nature of people not having a self and thus named them “second-handres” (Rand, 605). Because they have no pride in themselves, not, “To be great, but thought great” (Rand, 605). Because they do not judge themselves by their own eyes, they never become happy, and can’t stand to see others who are. That is why people like Roark conflict with society, not on principles or ideas, but in the fact that he has his own and others don’t.

The Fountainhead P. 573-583

Howard meets Peter after six years and is shocked by the “disintegration” (Rand 573) of his physical appearance. Peter came to the office, but his tone was not as it had been the last time he had meet Howard. This time, Peter seemed to have more of an understanding of Howard’s mindset and his own standing, admitting that “I’ve been a parasite all my life…I have fed on you and on all the men like you who lived before we were born…If they hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have known how to put stone on stone” (Rand 575). This acknowledgement of his own position was the same as when Dominique pointed it out to him, but the large differing factor is that he finally came to the conclusion in his own mind and was able to fully accept it. Knowing that he cannot succeed without Howard’s help, he asks him to design the Cortlandt Housing Project that would make housing for low-income families. Howard tells him that he needs a day to think it over and then later accepts his proposal to build the house for him. Before Howard does he makes Peter understand the ‘why’ in this. He made him understand that he built, not for glory or for his fellow man, or for money, but because “I love my work…I want to make it real, living, functioning, built” (Rand, 579). He also explains why he doesn’t just built it himself; because it is a project under the control of committees and a government and “I will never by given any job by any government” (Rand 579).
This cooperation in is showing the growth of Peter Keating as a character, and that while his own ability has not changed, nor has his way of getting by on someone else’s labor, he now knows it and understands it very clearly. It also shows Howard’s want for building, his love for any challenge in a project, and the message that Howard is just a person “glad to be alive. And [Keating] realized he had never actually believed that any living thing could be glad of the gift of existence” (Rand581).
It also showed a rare moment of Howard experiencing emotion; pity. Peter shows the paintings of his, the one’s he understand were no good but made him feel better. Howard only replied, “It’s too late, Peter” (Rand 582). And it showed Howard’s definition of pity being “complete awareness of a man without worth or hope, this sense of finality, of the not to be redeemed” (Rand 582-583). He also poised a very good and critical question about a society that “this monstrous feeling is called a virtue” (Rand, 583). This genuine and pure pity from Roark helps show why he despises society and everything it embodies as noble and right. Pity is not something for him that makes him feel better or more grateful for his own fortunes, something common in society, but the actual feeling of “an emotion which contained no shred of respect”(Rand 583).

The Fountainhead P. 534-572

The dinner with the three of them all together and talking seemed almost to have two currents flowing in it. There was the surface current in which Gail and Roark seemed to bond and behave almost like brothers in the same cause, and then another undercurrent that would not be put into words between Roark and Dominique. There is no eruption and Gail continues to go unaware of the fact that Roark and Dominique are in love. One theme is brought up as they sit and talk over dinner, that seems to be quite relevant to everyone at the table. It was Gail who brought up the consistency of one’s feelings, “A feeling which changes never existed in the first place” (Rand, 540). And reflecting on the characters that Ayn Rand shows to have integrity all have that element in common, no matter if they’re a sculptor, architect, or construction worker. All the other characters, the ones that seem to reflect the opinions of those they’re around, as Dominique had shown Peter he did, are unhappy because of this lack of principles they held. On the note of the story, Gail and Howard begin to meet regularly and this connection between them puts strain on Dominique, watching the two become close. Gail does one thing for Howard and does not tell him about it, he tells Ellsworth not to write of Howard Roark, “Not a word. Not ever again” (Rand, 546). This shows how his individual desires are beginning to take over his desire for power through the Banner, and how his is symbolic of an inner change that has been happening since he met Dominique, but has sped its change since meeting Roark.
Peter Keating is feeling time pass him by, that it is all coming undone. His business is not as prosperous as it once was, his mother has come back to live with him, and he isn’t mentioned by Ellsworth in his column any more. To try and seal his career for the rest of his life, he wants one more project, the Cortlandt project, which was an attempt to make a very cheap housing for the underprivileged and poor. Keating tired to see if Ellsworth could get him the project, but he told him that he could not, but if he could make a good plan he could get it on his own. This change of help from Ellsworth shows how once someone’s usefulness to him, which is still not one hundred percent clear, is through, he discards them and moves on to someone else. Knowing that this was out of his reach, he took the plans and made an appoint to meet with someone who he had not seen in a very long time, Howard Roark. This shows Peters conflict not to be against society, but to fit in with it and become what he thinks they all want him to be. One other note of significance is that Peter goes out on his own to paint, something briefly mentioned in the beginning by Peter, “At one time he had wanted to be an artist. It was his mother who had chosen a better field in which to exercise his talent for drawing” (Rand 31), and he was now going back to it on his own time as a form of release for himself. The drawing were not good by his own standards, but it’s the beginning of an attempt at Peter to recover the self he had lost long ago as a child.

The Fountainhead P. 503-534

Howard is kept busy with his work in the beginning of this section. He is building a resort in a place called Monadnock Valley, and spends eighteen months building it. There are no ad’s or advertisements for the resort as its opening approaches, as the people who hired him set it up to fail, selling 200% of shares of the resort. Their plain fails, as the resort becomes greatly successful and its popularity makes it end up being booked a year in advance. While Howard did not care for what reason he got the commission, it does show the fight between him and a society that, this time, literally and directly set out to fail. With this commission though, his popularity spreads, because now people had heard his name, and “the simple fact that Roark had built a place which made money for owners who didn’t want to make money” (Rand, 513) caused him to get many small commissions that kept him busy. This struggle with society is not as important as his complete disregard for it; so long as he is allowed to do what he wants, he does not care.
Gail Wynand, the now wife of Dominique, meets with Roark to discuss him building a home for him, “because I’m very desperately in love with my wife” (Rand, 519). This brings out several conflicts all at the same time. Wynand afterward researches Roark, and discovers what his paper had done to his Stoddard Temple, and is torn between what he desires, and what is expected of the owner of the Banner paper. Howard is conflicted between his love for Dominique and his love for building, but being a man who truly loves to build at any cost, is able to push that out of his mind and accept the commission as he would have for anyone else agreeing to his terms. These conflicts in a way bring Wynand and Roark into conflict, as Wynand tried to bribe Roark, by telling him that, in exchange for this commission, he must become the Banner’s architect, and that would require making things the ways others would require. Roark tells him he’d accept, if he’d take his personal house made of the same butchered forms of art, and Gail admits defeat, knowing that Roark’s integrity cannot be budged.
The section ends setting up for more conflicts between desires and roles of society, as Gail invites Roark to dinner with him and Dominique, “I know she hasn’t been kind to you in the past – I read what she wrote about you. But it’s so long ago. I hope it doesn’t matter now” (Rand, 534). The conflict will be if Dominique feels the same way and if Roark was telling the truth when he replied it didn’t. Dominique is also only aware that Gail wishes to build a house, and does not know that he has picked an architect yet, or that it is Howard.

The Fountainhead P. 466-502

Ellsworth, Gus Web and others who think like them were at the meeting of many the American Writers guild. There they listen to the play of Ike, a writer of no talent who wrote a play with plots and goals that are horrendous and gruesome to the individual as they preach about equality in such a sense that it becomes disgusting. The writer critic Fougler tells him that he will produce the play, “because it is – as you put it – crap” (Rand, 469). They find joy not in promoting those of greatness, but promoting those who show no talent, so that they feel fulfillment in their own ego, as well as keep down others of actual great talent. By doing this they keep down those of greatness who would be truly happy doing what they love no matter what. Ellsworth and his friends all seem to not have joy other than suppressing those who are happy or elevating those that are miserable, just as they did as to Peter Keating as he dropped in on them.
The Wedding of Dominique and Wayward commences during this part of the play. Gail wanted it to be as brief as possible, with the single court judge and have the news dribble out. Dominique, in her attempt to torture him and herself by making it a public wedding and seeing if they can endure it. Going against his paper and everything it represents, Gail, banned the Banner from writing more than two lines on the last page of the newspaper.
Gail and Dominique continue to bond and openly express their way that they really feel. Gail mentions people like Dwight Carson as “the man I bought” (Rand, 496), because of his integrity for preaching the individual. After throwing enough money at him, Wayward made him write about the glory of society as a whole; not because he held personal convictions on that, but simply because it proved that he had the power to break the will of someone who had once shown integrity. He also mentioned his love for Dominique, which sounded as more of a selfish obsession where, “I love you so much that nothing can matter to me – not even you…Only my love – not your answer” (Rand, 502). This degree of affection, or rather obsession, and disregard for anyone’s opinion of it, even the target, shows a great degree of individualistic belief and personal fulfillment without care of the rest of the world that the author is trying to contrast with the preaching of loving every man as a brother that Ellsworth has so often preached and people like Peter Keating gobble up.

Fountainhead P. 418-466

Dominique and Keating begin to understand one another, and Keating begins to understand, in an instant, that Dominique is understood by Peter Keating, and understands that she is just showing the people around them how they are all void of ideas by simply agreeing with them. This understanding brings them closer, but is shattered in an instant by the arrival of Ellsworth, who informs Keating that he may be able to gain the large commission of Stoneridge from Wayward in exchange for letting Dominique go away with him for a week on his yacht.
Wayward does not seem to follow his usual routine with Dominique, but seems to fall in love with her. He even states outright to her, “I love you” (Rand, 448). Keating accepts a bribe of the Stoneridge commission, and then $250,000 from Wayward in exchange for divorcing Dominique. After a brief moment of rejecting the offer, Keating greedily accepts it.
Roark just slips by doing little jobs here and there. It seems to be that he’s hit a low in his career after the Stoddard Temple incident. He only shows up when Dominique finds him as he is redoing a house and she tells him of her marrying Wayward. This news actually triggers a physical response of shock and horror from Roark, even if for only a moment.