The Fountainhead

Plot Overview
Howard Roark, a brilliant young architect, is expelled from his architecture school for refusing to follow the school?s outdated traditions. He goes to New York to work for Henry Cameron, a disgraced architect whom Roark admires. Roark?s schoolmate, Peter Keating, moves to New York and goes to work for the prestigious architectural firm Francon & Heyer, run by the famous Guy Francon. Roark and Cameron create beautiful work, but their projects rarely receive recognition, whereas Keating?s ability to flatter and please brings him almost instant success. In just a few years, he becomes a partner at the firm after he causes Francon?s previous partner to have a stroke. Henry Cameron retires, financially ruined, and Roark opens his own small office. His unwillingness to compromise his designs in order to satisfy clients eventually forces him to close down the office and take a job at a granite quarry in Connecticut.
In Connecticut, Roark feels an immediate, passionate attraction to Dominique Francon, Guy Francon?s temperamental and beautiful daughter. Society disgusts Dominique, and she has retreated to her family?s estate to escape the mediocre architecture she sees all around her. One night, Roark enters the house and rapes her. Dominique discovers that this is what she had needed, but when she looks for Roark, he has left the quarry to design a building for a prominent New York businessman. Dominique returns to New York and discovers Roark?s identity. She realizes that he designed a building she admires. Dominique and Roark begin to meet in secret, but in public she tries to sabotage his career and destroy him. Ellsworth Toohey, an architectural critic and socialist, slowly prepares to rise to power. He seeks to prevent men from excelling by teaching that talent and ability are of no great consequence, and that the greatest virtue is humility. Toohey sees Roark as a great threat and tries to destroy him. Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman named Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark as the designer for a temple dedicated to the human spirit, then persuades the businessman to sue Roark once the building is completed. At Roark?s trial, every prominent architect in New York testifies that Roark?s style is unorthodox and illegitimate, but Dominique declares that the world does not deserve the gift Roark has given it. Stoddard wins the case and Roark loses his business again. To punish herself for desiring Roark, Dominique marries Peter Keating.
Enter Gail Wynand, a brilliant publisher, who has lost his early idealism and made his fortune by printing newspapers that say exactly what the public wants to hear. Wynand meets Dominique and falls in love with her, so he buys her from Keating by offering him money and a prestigious contract in exchange for his wife. Dominique agrees to marry Wynand because she thinks he is an even worse person than Keating, but to her surprise, Wynand is a man of principle. Wynand and Roark meet and become fast friends, but Wynand does not know the truth about Roark?s relationship with Dominique. Meanwhile Keating, who has fallen from grace, asks Roark for help with the Cortlandt Homes, a public housing project. The idea of economical housing intrigues Roark. He agrees to design the project and let Keating take the credit on the condition that no one makes a single alteration to his plan.
When Roark returns from a summer-long yacht trip with Wynand, he finds that, despite the agreement, the Cortlandt Homes project has been changed. Roark asks Dominique to distract the night watchman one night and then dynamites the building. When the police arrive, he submits without resistance. The entire country condemns Roark, but Wynand finally finds the courage to follow his convictions and orders his newspapers to defend him. The Banner?s circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique?s help. Eventually, Wynand gives in and denounces Roark. At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a statement about the value of selfishness and the need to remain true to oneself. Roark describes the triumphant role of creators and the price they pay at the hands of corrupt societies. The jury finds him not guilty. Roark marries Dominique. Wynand asks Roark to design one last building, a skyscraper that will testify to the supremacy of man.

Character List
Howard Roark - The novel?s hero, a brilliant architect of absolute integrity. Roark has friends and colleagues, but relies on himself alone. He is tall, gaunt, and angular, with gray eyes and distinctive orange hair. Born to a poor family, Roark supports himself throughout high school and college by working odd jobs on construction sites. He brings the same fiery intensity to whatever job he does, whether it is manual labor or architecture. He loves the beautiful Dominique Francon with violent passion. He is the novel?s idealization of man, bringing innovative and joyful buildings to the rest of the world.
Howard Roark (In-Depth Analysis)
Ellsworth Toohey - The villain of the novel, and Roark?s antithesis?a man with a lust for power but no talent. Since his boyhood, Toohey has despised the achievements of others, and he dedicates himself to squelching other people?s talents and ambitions. He is a small and fragile-looking man, but his persuasive voice and knack for manipulation make him a formidable opponent. He encourages selflessness and altruism to coax others into submission. His philosophy is a blend of religion, Fascism and Socialism, and he at times resembles the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin.
Ellsworth Toohey (In-Depth Analysis)
Dominique Francon - Daughter of the prestigious architect Guy Francon, her fragile appearance, pale gold hair, and gray eyes belie her capability and bluntness. Dispassionate, cynical, and cold, Dominique nurses a masochistic streak. Although she loves Roark and his beliefs, she initially tries to destroy him before the rest of the world can. Eventually, to punish herself for her behavior, she marries Peter Keating and then Gail Wynand.
Dominique Francon (In-Depth Analysis)
Gail Wynand - A ruthless media tycoon who sells his integrity for power. Wynand comes from New York?s slums and is an entirely self-taught, self-made man. He had sought power so he could rule the incompetent and corrupt, but in acquiring wealth he becomes like them. His faith in humanity is restored when he meets Roark, who is incorruptible, and he becomes Roark?s great ally and friend before finally betraying him.
Gail Wynand (In-Depth Analysis)
Peter Keating - A classmate of Roark?s who lives only for fame and the approval of others. Keating is good-looking and commercially successful, but he steals his only original ideas from Roark. In order to rise to the top, Keating flatters, lies, steals, kills, and even trades his wife, Dominique, for the opportunity to work on a promising project. His fall is even more rapid than his rise. He realizes the error of his ways too late and lives the rest of his life in frightened misery.
Peter Keating (In-Depth Analysis)
Henry Cameron - Roark?s mentor, an intractable and aggressive architect who is in the twilight of his career at the onset of the novel. Like Roark, Cameron suffers greatly at the hands of the world because he loves his buildings, but he does not have Roark?s strength and lives a frustrated and anguished life. Ruined physically and financially, Cameron dies still fighting the world.
Catherine Halsey - Toohey?s niece and Keating?s on-again, off-again fianc?e. Halsey is not beautiful, but her innocence and sincerity provide Keating with a refuge from himself. Although Keating loves Katie, he abandons her, and her uncle Toohey slowly destroys her spirit.
Guy Francon - Dominique?s father and Keating?s employer and business partner. Francon rises to fame nearly as swiftly as Keating, but he has no real talent of his own. Nonetheless, Francon is a fundamentally honest and decent man, and eventually he finds salvation through his love for his spirited daughter.
Stephen Mallory - A gifted but disillusioned sculptor who feels alone and misunderstood until Roark rescues him from his drunken doldrums. Mallory?s statues portray a heroic vision of man, but the world rejects his work. Mallory tries to kill Toohey, whom the artist blames for the failings of the world. Eventually he regains his self-confidence through his work on Roark?s buildings.
Alvah Scarret - Wynand?s editor-in-chief. Scarret clings to Wynand out of habit and inertia. He believes every article and column printed in the Banner. Because Scarret?s beliefs reflect those of the masses, Wynand uses him to measure public opinion.
Mrs. Keating - Keating?s forceful and manipulative mother. Mrs. Keating?s preoccupation with money and success prompt Keating to make all the wrong choices. Mrs. Keating devoutly believes that financial success is the surest indicator of a person?s quality.
Mike - A tough, phenomenally ugly electrician who admires talent in any form. He instantly recognizes Roark?s ability and becomes a staple on the construction sites of the buildings Roark designs.
The Dean - The Dean of the architecture school, a staunch traditionalist who frowns on any deviation from the architectural canon. The Dean believes everything worthy has already been designed and views Roark as dangerous.
John Erik Snyte - A supposedly progressive architect who is in fact the ultimate plagiarizer. He has a group of five designers who make their own version of each design and then puts together all of the five designs to create the final sketch.

Analysis of Major Characters
Howard Roark
Howard Roark is the undisputed hero of The Fountainhead, and his story drives the novel. His name contains the words ?hard? and ?roar,? both of which accurately describe his tough, determined character. Roark?s buildings suggest his personality, for like Roark they are innovative and austere. Roark never compromises or deviates from his principles. Rand holds him up as everything that man can and should be. Consequently, Roark does not develop over the course of the novel?the ideal man does not need to change. Although Rand despised religion, she often describes Roark as if he is a religious figure. Roark does not preach, and he never actively seeks converts, but he inspires absolute devotion and rapture in his followers. Cameron, Mallory, Dominique, and Wynand change their entire belief systems after meeting him. Dominique in particular exhibits a religious passion for Roark, racked by ecstasy and guilt as if inspired by a messiah. Like all Christ figures in literature, Roark?s enemies persecute him. Despite the hatred of the world, Roark lives life as Rand thinks it should be lived.
Ellsworth Toohey
In direct contrast to Roark, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey embodies everything evil about mankind. He is irredeemably corrupt and evil. Whereas Roark never tries to win friends or influence people, Toohey?s power lies entirely in his ability to control weaker minds and souls. Toohey?s evil is as ingrained as Roark?s goodness?Toohey learns the practice of manipulation as a child, and turns it into an art by the time he graduates from college. By making people feel small and guilty, Toohey shakes their faith in their own abilities and then assumes control of their lives. Toohey preaches selflessness and ignorance of the ego to force people to act with humble mediocrity. Toohey has no talents of his own, so he makes himself excellent by grinding down his followers. His tactics frequently evoke those of Joseph Stalin, the former Russian revolutionary who emerged as Russia?s dictator.
Dominique Francon
Dominique?s beauty and strength of spirit make her a perverse, unusual woman and the perfect complement to Howard Roark. At the beginning of the novel, she is convinced of the world?s rottenness and believes that greatness has no chance of survival. She surrounds herself with the things she despises to avoid watching the world destroy the things she loves. Dominique instantly recognizes Roark?s greatness, but she does not initially believe that he can survive in a selfless and irrational society. The thought that a man like Roark needs society in order to build pains Dominique, and she tries to destroy him before the rest of the world can. Yet Dominique wants to fail in her bid to destroy Roark, because if she fails it means absolute good and genius can survive even in an evil world.
Gail Wynand
The charismatic, capable, and aristocratic Wynand straddles the line between mainstream society and Roark?s world, and this division makes him the novel?s tragic figure. Like Roark, Wynand has extraordinary capabilities and energy, but unlike Roark he lets the world corrupt him. When we first meet Wynand, he is entirely a man of the outside world, exclusively involved with society and its interests. His youthful idealism has been crushed by the world?s cynicism. Wynand makes his living with newspapers that report on the vulgar and the common. This involvement with the world leaves Wynand misanthropic, bored, and suicidal. Wynand?s worldview changes when he meets Dominique and Roark, who ignite the passion and integrity lingering within Wynand. During Roark?s trial Wynand fights the world again and tries to turn his life around. He eventually feels that he cannot escape the ugliness he has created. Tragically, Wynand compromises at the last minute and loses his last chance at salvation.
Peter Keating
Rand has little sympathy for the rise and fall of Peter Keating. Keating starts off as a young and attractive architecture student, and although he is clearly Roark?s inferior, their lives and careers advance in parallel fashion. By the novel?s end, however, Keating is a weak and alcoholic nobody, the exact fate once reserved for talented men like Henry Cameron. Whereas Cameron suffers because of others, however, Keating is a victim of his own mistakes. Unlike Wynand, who suffers for turning his back on his own potential, Keating is born mediocre and weak and never had a chance at greatness. Instead, Keating suffers for denying his own mediocrity and for thinking himself too good for a modest but happy life. In The Fountainhead, character determines fate, and the moment Keating becomes dishonest as well as weak, he dooms himself to unhappiness.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Primacy of the Individual
Howard Roark is the novel?s embodiment of the perfect man. Rand wants us to admire his talent and courage, and his struggle to resist society?s sway and remain true to himself. The Fountainhead revolves around Roark?s struggle to retain his individuality in the face of forces bent on bringing him to heel. At his second trial, Roark argues that individuals, not societies, propel history. He says that individual creators are the fountainhead of civilization. Roark?s speech is passionate and lyrical, and the audience receives it with awed silence. The struggle for individuality is not confined to Roark. Every one of the novel?s sympathetic characters struggles to act independently from society, and the desire to assert one?s self becomes the single greatest virtue a character can possess. The novel ends triumphantly not because Roark defeats or converts his enemies, but because he has won the right to act according to his own principles. The thesis at the heart of The Fountainhead is that society has a herd mentality, and individuals must act selfishly in order to be free.
The Importance of Reason
The Fountainhead disapproves of sentimentalism, and argues that everything worth thinking or feeling should be the product of reason and logic, not emotion. Whenever Roark, Dominique, or Wynand expound on the supremacy of the individual, they justify their positions with logical arguments rather than with emotional appeals. The novel respects logic and reason so much that everything it applauds is scientific, factual, and pure. The novel?s mathematicians, engineers, builders, and businessmen are inevitably more intelligent than its sentimental writers and journalists. Roark bases all of his designs on the simplest geometrical shapes, such as triangles or squares. Rand condemns sentimentality and compassion as the enemies of reason because they confuse the mind and compromise individualism. The arch-villain Toohey controls the weak by advocating such values as selflessness. Collectivism, altruism, and mysticism are depicted as illogical beliefs that manipulate the heart rather than engage the mind. In order to justify the novel?s tough attitude, Rand argues that even the best intentions lead to imprisonment, while cold, unflinching reason sets man free.
The Cold Ferocity of Love
In The Fountainhead, love, like integrity and invention, is a principle worth fighting for and defending. The protagonists constantly hone and improve their relationships. Even Roark and Dominique forego some of their fierce devotion to independence and eventually allow themselves to surrender to one another. The emotion of love might seem to contradict the novel?s devotion to reason, but the characters demand relationships so perfect that they come to seem logical and mathematical. Roark stands by while Dominique marries first Keating and then Wynand as if watching her enact an algebraic equation. He calculates that she will emerge from the marriages more suited to him, so he bears the pain of losing her to other men. Even in their passionate encounters, Roark and Dominique refuse to yield to emotion. Instead, they make love with a violent and calculating fury in scenes that Rand writes in prose more technical than romantic. The novel extols the virtues of science and logic and argues personal relationships can exist within these virtues. As long as relationships help people maximize their potential, then the novel sees love as a version of logic, and therefore approves of it.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text?s major themes.
Technical Progress
In The Fountainhead, technical progress indicates the forward movement of society. The novel measures the progress of mankind by the number of buildings and scientific innovations it produces, rather than by its art and philosophy. All of the most crucial industrial developments come from the minds of individuals and entrepreneurs rather than from the masses. Therefore, the period of greatest industrial development also marks the period of greatest individualism. Rand?s adoring treatment of the New York skyline signals her glorification of industry and technology. Wynand, Dominique, and Roark all gaze admiringly at the skyline, which serves as a reminder of their ambitions and goals. Beautiful, inspired skyscrapers represent human conquest over nature and symbolize modernity. In contrast to this glorification of architecture, the novel scoffs at other forms of art. Every time a new play or work of literature crops up in the narrative, the work in question is made to appear ridiculous and self-indulgent.
Journalism
The novel holds up architecture as the ideal art form, and journalism as all that is banal and corrupt. The villainous Toohey works his ill will as a sneaky, manipulative journalist, and Wynand builds his empire on a chain of exploitative and sensationalist papers that cater to the most depraved emotions of the masses. Rand constantly suggests the impossibility of reasoned, intelligent journalism. The one time Wynand tries to use his paper for good, he fails. According to Rand, newspapers are fundamentally weak because they have to cater to the public. The idiocy of the public becomes clear when Wynand holds a contest. He tests the public by trying to raise money simultaneously for a brilliant scientist and for the pregnant girlfriend of a convicted murderer. When the public overwhelmingly supports the girl, it suggests that the public is incapable of the rationality necessary to accomplish great things. Rand suggests that any medium that relies on the public is doomed to mediocrity.
Labor
The novel exhibits mixed views on manual labor, regarding it as both one of the few authentic occupations and as a den of collectivist activity. Roark works at many construction sites, which allows him to preserve his integrity by earning wages when he cannot find clients. Roark has good friends who work as laborers, such as Mike the electrician. The novel presents physical labor as a pure, productive activity and thus something admirable. On the other hand, labor breeds unions, groups that the novel violently condemns. Nefarious Toohey makes his first appearance in the novel when he addresses a crowd of discontented laborers and easily manipulates their cooperative spirit to make them his spiritual captives. Rand was a virulent anti-communist and saw socialism, which grew out of the labor movement, as the greatest threat to the United States. The novel admires laborers and workmen as individuals, but it fears and mistrusts them as a group.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Granite
Rand associates granite with Roark?s character. Granite symbolizes his external and internal features. Like the rock, Roark?s face, body, and mind are hard, rare, unchanging, and beautiful. Roark, however, is even stronger than the rock that symbolizes him. In a number of scenes, we see Roark breaking granite or using it for his designs. When Dominique first sees Roark at a granite quarry she wishes the drilling would hurt and destroy Roark, but by the end of the novel, Roark?s ability to shape the granite according to his desires pleases her. The novel believes in the absolute supremacy of man, and consequently it rejoices when man triumphs over nature.
Ice
Ice symbolizes Dominique. Rand describes Dominique?s body as fragile and angular. The clothes that Dominique wears either glitter like ice, shine like glass, or are the color of water. Wynand gives Dominique a diamond necklace made to look like loose pieces of ice scattered on her cool skin. Ice also reflects her personality at the beginning of the novel?blank and frigid. Once Roark warms Dominique?s spirit, the associations between her and ice grow infrequent and eventually disappear.
The Banner
In The Fountainhead, the Banner symbolizes the worst elements of society and mass culture. The Banner reflects and feeds the public?s poor taste. In The Fountainhead only individuals are noble, so anything designed for a group is necessarily ugly, crude, and ignorant. Wynand realizes this fact at the very end of the novel when he tries to make the Banner into an honorable machine and finally sees that the newspaper cannot elevate public opinion to something noble.