Book Reports /
The Fountainhead (Written for an Essay Contest) [8]
An essay contest that I don't have a snowball's chance of winning. I didn't enter. I had a seizure that landed me in the hospital a couple of days before the deadline and I missed the date.
This particular contest has *236* winners. Even though it is highly competitive, I figured that my chances were significantly improved by the sheer number of winners. I don't know how much time I spent reading the book and writing the essay (the audiobook is 32 hours). At least I was able to talk my English teacher into giving me some extra credit points for my effort (extra credit points that I sorely needed after my absences). The rules specify that the essay should be between 800 and 1600 words. This stands at 1597 words. I like to live on the edge.
I want to give it a shot next year. Posting this year's essay and getting feedback will be invaluable to improving my odds the next go round. Thanks!
In asking Roark to design Cortlandt, Keating says he would sell his soul for Roark's help. Roark replies, "To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul-would you understand why that's much harder?"In her 1943 novel,
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand illustrates her philosophy of Objectivism through the stark contrast of the protagonist Howard Roark and the middling figure of Peter Keating. Roark's steadfast adherence to his principals, even when the stakes are high, testifies to his character as a man. Peter Keating, on the other hand, changes his colors to fit the environment, rides others' coattails, and manipulates his way to the top of his field. The dichotomy between the characters is illustrated when Keating asks Roark to help him with plans for a cost-efficient housing project. Keating grovels and pleads with Roark saying that he'd do anything-even sell his soul-for Roark's assistance. Roark answers, "To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul-would you understand why that's much harder?" (578). Rand explains the human soul or spirit as " . . . your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character" (
The New Intellectual, 127). Howard Roark is a man who holds tight to his dignity in an uncompromising quest to defend against the disintegration of his soul. Peter Keating's choices, on the other hand, degrade his soul, piece by piece, to attain his desires.
When the reader first meets Howard Roark and Peter Keating, they are studying architecture at the same university. Peter is "star student of Stanton, president of the student body, captain of the track team, member of the most important fraternity, voted most popular man on campus" (29). Keating is adept at emulating the styles that the school is teaching and at pleasing instructors, but he is not the luminary that he appears to be on the surface. When he is asked to speak at graduation, he has "nothing to say about architecture" (31). Keating relies on Roark to help him with the technical aspects of his assignments. As Keating is graduating at the top of his class, Roark is expelled. He is brilliant in his engineering sciences courses, but designs his projects in the way that he sees fit instead of adhering to the dictates of the assignments. The Dean asks Roark to explain why he designs modern buildings regardless of the assigned task. Roark answers, "I want to be an architect, not an archeologist" (22).
Roark and Keating embark on careers in New York City, taking very divergent tacks. Roark seeks out Henry Cameron, a visionary architect without many commissions, because he admires his work. Keating accepts a position at Francon & Heyer solely for the cachet the name offers. Roark opens his own office and struggles financially, but refuses to compromise his designs to please clients. Keating is a master at pleasing people and using social ties to win contracts. Keating has "always known how to become a part of any place he entered; he came soft and bright as a sponge to be filled, unresisting, with the air and mood of the place" (53). Roark, conversely, is as steady as the rock he builds with, and doesn't care to be anything other than himself. Roark rhetorically asks, "What can I tell people in order to get commissions? I can only show my work. If they don't hear that, they won't hear anything I say. I'm nothing to them, but my work-my work is all we have in common" (160). When a client asks Roark to play badminton with him, Roark declines. Keating cannot comprehend this approach. "You know what I would have done?" Keating says. "I would have sworn I'd played badminton since I was two years old and how it's the game of kings and earls and it takes a soul of rare distinction to appreciate it and by the time he'd put me to the test I'd have made it my business to play like an earl, too" (262).
Roark allows his sense of morality to be his guide in all decisions that he makes, with financial success being secondary to upholding his principles. Roark has drawn plans for a skyscraper, but the client wants to add a Doric portico and a cornice. Roark walks away from the commission because he cannot maintain the integrity of his design and meet the client's requests. The client chastises Roark saying, "Don't you know how big a commission this is? You're a young man, you won't get another chance like this. And . . . all right, damn it all, I'll say it! You need this! I know how badly you need it!" As Roark is walking away, the client accuses him of being fanatical and selfless. Roark retorts, "That was the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do" (197-198). Loosing this commission means that Roark must close his architectural office and take work at a granite quarry. This fate is more palatable to him than erecting a building that looks "like a Renaissance palace made of rubber and stretched to the height of forty stories" (173).
Keating lacks a moral compass. He crushes those ahead of him to move up the ladder at the architectural firm. Keating blackmails the firm's partner, Lucius Heyer, in an attempt to force his retirement. Under the stress of Keating's confrontation, Heyer suffers a fatal stroke. Keating feels no guilt over Heyer's death. Even though Keating had relied on "the shock and the terror" of his actions to cause a "second stroke which would send Heyer to the hospital for the rest of his days" (186), he justifies his course by telling himself "that he had nothing to regret; he had done what anyone else would have done" (187). Keating later sells his wife Dominique to Gail Wynand in exchange for a building contract saying, "I'll use you both and I'll get what I can out of it-and that's all I care (450).
Roark trusts his instincts when it comes to architecture. Howard Roark "didn't care what the clients thought or wished, what anyone in the world thought or wished. He didn't even understand how other architects could care" (352). The other architects thought of Roark as conceited and took his failure to work with a group as a personal affront. Roark answered them succinctly with, "I don't work with collectives. I don't consult, I don't cooperate, I don't collaborate" (514). It is because Roark understands and appreciates the quality of his own work that he adamantly adheres to his designs.
Keating reveals his uncertainty in his abilities when he says, "I'm never sure of myself. I don't know whether I'm as good as they all tell me I am" (33). All his life Peter Keating has subjugated his own desires and accepted the direction that others have pushed him in. As a young man, he had wanted to be an artist, but his mother thought that architecture was a more dignified career. Keating would have married his sweetheart, Katie, long ago if it hadn't been for her plain appearance and the fact that his mother calls Katie a "guttersnipe" (155). When it comes to assessing his own stature as an architect, Keating "didn't want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn't want to build, but to be admired as a builder" (606).
Keating realizes that he is in over his head. He tells Roark, "Howard, I'm a parasite. I've been a parasite all my life. . . . I have fed on you and all the men like you who lived before we were born (576). Roark knows that he has done no favors for Peter when he has helped him with his work. Roark apologizes by saying, "It's I who've destroyed you, Peter. From the beginning. By helping you. There are matters in which one must not ask for help nor give it. I shouldn't have done your projects at Stanton. I shouldn't have done the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. Nor Cortlandt. I loaded you with more than you can carry (612-613). Despite this, Roark helps Keating design one more building-a housing project named Cortlandt, but only on the condition that there are no changes to Roark's plan. Roark allows Keating to profit from the commission and take all the credit because he wants to see his concept for the building erected. Peter is helpless when committee members change Roark's vision for Cortlandt. When Roark discovers the alterations, he conspires to demolish the structure, even knowing that he could go to prison for the deed. Howard Roark does this because of his unmitigated devotion to his ideals.
At his trial, Roark tells those assembled that "Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current" (682). We live in a society that inculcates altruism, but Roark stands against society and extols the virtue of the individual. Roark understands that "A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego" (680). Keating sits in the courtroom as a broken man who has sold his soul long ago. Roark has resolutely retained his soul and the aspects that comprise his human essence. Roark may not have enjoyed financial success or accolades from his contemporaries, but he is secure in the knowledge that he has not wavered in his principals.
