Success and Moral in The Fountain Head by Ayn Rand - Book Report/Review Example

The fountain head essay Introduction According to author Ayn Rand, in the novel the fountainhead, ego is expressed as individualism and collectivism in human soul. The novel is an examination of life of an idealistic architect who does not compromise with the prevailing values in building design. Howard Roark, the lead character of the novel does not compromise at any stage in his life and struggles for every thing. Though he was brilliant he was thrown out of the architectural school due to his no compromise attitude. His friend Keating, who succeeds with his help, also resents him. He finds refuse with Henry Cameron who has been faced the situation like that of Roark in his past days. Henry shares the vision of Roark. Henry dies and asks Roark to find answer for everything. After this Roark unable to sustain the Henry’s firm and finds work at a quarry owned by Keating’s firm owner Dominique Francon. She recognises Roark’s capability and falls in love with him. To bring realisation in Roark, Dominique asks Keating to marry her, instead of the woman he liked. She wants to hinder the Roark’s professional career as she feels that the world is unworthy of Roark’s creations. Keating’s former lover’s uncle Toohey plots for destroying the Roark’s creations legally and succeeds in it. After this and divorce with Keating and due to Toohey, Dominique and Gail Wynand meet. Dominique marries Wynand to test Roark further. Wynand develops friendship with Roark, unknown of affair between him and his wife. He wants to isolate his wife and Roark from their work and fails in doing so. The climax of the novel is a consequence of Keating’s desperate request with Roark to help him in designing a building. The condition is that, there should be no intervention or alteration in the Roark’s design. This does not happen and Roark calculatedly blows up the building with the help of Dominique and she pretends that there is no role of her in the blast. After this Roark stands trial for the crime he committed by blowing up he building. Wynand defends Roark in his papers and looses popularity. When he opposes Roark, his popularity soars again. At the court Roark expounds at length at his deeds and will be acquitted at the end. After that Roark and Dominique marry and Roark receives final commission from Wynand for building a sky scraper. With this climax Roark will be a successful architect as wished by Dominique. Practical Success and Moral The view that emerged in the novel is that the practical success is not instant when a professional strives for moral values. It may be difficult to achieve, but not impossible. The values of a perfect man take time to sink in to the people or the capitalist’s mind as they are hard to digest. When a common man or a capitalist finds a view opposite to that of his beliefs, he instantly refuses to accept it. Roark faces this rejection in majority incidents in his life. This may result in rejection of a perfect man. If a perfect man like Roark is mentally strong enough to take that rejection, without disturbing his attitude and goes on with his plans, he can find his admirers. The main break a perfect man like Roark can get is an opportunity to prove his creativity. The views cannot be accepted by just expressing. They can be accepted by showing them in a materialist form. It takes time for a perfectionist who is not able to convince his clients about his perfection. When a perfectionist like Roark tries to achieve it associated with morality and without compromising his values, the success will be delayed. In the beginning of the novel it appears that the moral and the success are different and one cannot achieve both of them. This depends on the standard of perfection and striving for moral values along with mental stability and balance one can have. The less the mental strength, the more chance of succumbing to the needs of the clients and that brings down the perfection in the perfectionist. If a perfect man like Roark wants to be successful in his career according to his views and desires, it was shown in the novel that he should have initial sacrifices, inspirations and oppositions. When a man like Roark proceeds with his merit, spirit, skill and moral values regarding creativity and perfectionism, he will surely get a chance from like minded men. These men may be the people who succumbed to the societal compulsions, which are against their desires of combining success and moral values. This can be demonstrated by the acts of Wynand, when he loses his paper’s popularity due to supporting Roark and gains popularity by opposing him. Though it happens like that, he was the man who offers work for Roark and was the person responsible to accept his views and work. This made the Roark a successful architect and even made everybody to know about his skill and creativity, when the construction was materialised. Conception of success and morality According to the views expressed in novel, success with morality meets with a strong mental personality and was permanent. The success that was gained due to compromising creativity and one’s attitude about the profession is materialistic and temporary. Some people may compromise their individuality to the needs of clients can have success. After that they strive for creative persons’ help when they face the real problems and challenges in their work. The view expressed in the novel was that, the success is temporary and just materialistic when the individuality is compromised. This is at its peak when Peter Keating asks for the help of Roark for a challenging building design. Along with the above mentioned view, it was observed that the people who want to combine the morality with their profession and the business need some guts and strong mental personality in facing the challenges they face in the course of time. The wickedness of the pseudo socialists and the people who want to gain on sacrificing the merit are capable of damaging the career of a perfectionist. If the perfectionist is mentally strong, he can rise from the fall that the wickedness of the people caused and can prove his merit. This requires support from like minded men and women who were fascinated by the morality, perfection and strength of mind in him. This happens to Roark in the form of Dominique and Wynand. Dominique marries two people for just making Roark know, what the world is. Wynand wants to support Roark in his paper and looses his popularity. Though he gained his popularity by opposing Roark in his paper he offers work for Rand by the money he earned from doing so. The above mentioned consequences develop a conception that the success without morality is materialistic and temporary. The success with morality is delayed, but permanent, materialistic and satisfactory. The above mentioned conception can be established by the fact that the betrayal by Keating to Catherine ends in divorce from Dominique, who is a woman of intelligence and values. He was not able to keep his spouse for life long due to his continuous compromise of his conscience to the challenges that are put before him by life. At last due to lack of creativity and the weakness developed by compromises, he approaches Roark for a help in building design. Actually Keating has developed resentment towards Roark in the beginning of the career though he was graduated from the school with the help of him. The conception that success with morality can happen with strong mental personality can be supported by contrasting profiles of Wynand and Roark. Wynand acts according to the public opinion and becomes rich with his perfection. In contrast, Roark have moral values and perfectionism of Wynand and is strong enough to withstand the initial resentment and faces challenges in life. He emerged as a winner at last by expressing his views of objectivism against capitalism and collectivism. The success here confluences with morality and it was expressed that it was the ultimate thing one can achieve. The success with out morality is portrayed in the form of Keating who ends up with asking help of Roark. The initial success of Keating builds up a notion that the success is separate from morality. At the end the consequences establish that success with morality and creativity is ultimate and permanent. Reference to the characters and events of the story Howard Roark, was the image of perfection in the eyes of Author Rand and she portrays in him the initial failures due to no compromise attitude. Slowly the career of Roark that goes on with hindrances due to his individuality, the morality and mental strength in him makes him come close to the persons who are same in thought but different in deed. The personalities of Dominique and Wynand were the ones who aided for sharpening of Roark and made him a successful person. Actually these persons were not able to implement the values of Roark in their own life, though they want to do so. The hostility he faced with the second hand souls did not deter Roark from his path, but that is not the case in Wynand. He corrects himself by opposing Roark in his trail through his paper and gains popularity that was lost by supporting him. Though he supports Roark in his real life, his compromising attitude was clearly visible. This is not in the case of Roark. Dominique is another personality in the novel who did not compromise to the situations but seems to be so. She does every thing to make Roark sharper and makes him aware of the society’s evils. She even helps him blowing up a building that was constructed against his desires and conditions in the agreement. When Roark emerges out of the failures and legal tangles, she marries him, thus making her wish come true. In this manner Roark combined morality and profession and achieved success with individualism and creativity. In contrast Keating who developed resentment was initially successful but surrenders to Roark when real time comes. His compromise of morality to the success was visible in every scene of his life. His initial compromise brought him early success and ended up in a failure. Though he shows loyalty to girl friend Catherine by not having sex with her before marriage, betrays her to marry Dominoque. In contrast Roark had sex with Dominique on her will and did not marry her till the end. He does not have any inhibitions about his nature and behaviour. There is nothing in him to hide. This is not in the case of Keating and Toohey who continuously tries to destroy Roark and his career. In every plot in the novel, either Keating or Toohey plans for the fall of Roark. Though their plans met with initial success, they are a failure at final show down due to the uncompromised morality, individuality and creativity in Roark. This results in the destruction of the construction done against the conditions of the agreement with Roark. Thus Toohey’s act of destroying a construction work of Roark was given a befitting reply by blowing up the building that was constructed against the contract with Roark. In this context Roark was established as not only a person of morality but also as a person of activity. This spirit of activity starts at the point of blasting the construction that was done against the agreement with him. It reaches its paragon when he expresses himself at length in the court, and supports his nature and behaviour. He was able to make the law accept his acts by exposing the evil nature of his betrayers. This chance and opportunity came for Roark, as he was undeterred with the initial failures and consequences of his no compromise attitude. The incidents and consequences faced by Roark cannot be handled by Wynand for he was not that much non deterrent when any opposition and failure comes to him. Though it is sure that there will be no success with out money, it was established that it was not the total of the success. This can be stated by the fact that though the success of the Roark was due to the money and order offered by Wynand, the novel spots only the success of Roark at the end. Read More