The Fountainhead
Encyclopedia
The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand
. It was Rand's first major literary success and brought her fame and financial success. More than 6.5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide.
The Fountainheads protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic
young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice what the public sees as modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allow the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. Roark is Rand's embodiment of the human spirit, and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.
The manuscript was rejected by twelve publishers before a young editor, Archibald Ogden, at the Bobbs-Merrill Company
risked his job to get it published. Despite mixed reviews from the contemporary media, the book gained a following by word of mouth and became a bestseller
. The novel was made into a Hollywood film
in 1949. Rand wrote the screenplay
, and Gary Cooper
played Roark.
with writing a script for what would become the film Skyscraper. The original story, by Dudley Murphy
, was about two construction workers involved in building a New York
skyscraper who are rivals for a woman's love. Rand rewrote the story, transforming the rivals into architects. One of them, Howard Kane, was an idealist dedicated to his mission and erecting the skyscraper despite enormous obstacles. The film would have ended with Kane throwing back his head in victory, standing atop the completed skyscraper. In the end DeMille rejected Rand's script, and the actual film followed Murphy's original idea, but Rand's version contained elements that she would later use in The Fountainhead.
Rand began The Fountainhead (originally titled Second-Hand Lives) following the completion of her first novel, We the Living
. While that earlier novel had been based partly on people and events from Rand's experiences, the new novel was to focus on the less-familiar world of architecture
. Therefore, she did extensive research to develop plot and character ideas. This included reading numerous biographies and books about architecture, and working as an unpaid typist in the office of architect Ely Jacques Kahn
.
Rand's intention was to write a novel that was less overtly political than We the Living, to avoid being "considered a 'one-theme' author". As she developed the story, she began to see more political meaning in the novel's ideas about individualism
. Rand also initially planned to introduce each chapter with a quote from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
, whose ideas had influenced her own intellectual development. However, she eventually decided that Nietzsche's ideas were too different from her own. The quotes were not placed in the published novel, and she edited the final manuscript to remove other allusions to him.
Rand's work on The Fountainhead was repeatedly interrupted. In 1937 she took a break from it to write a novella called Anthem
. She also completed a stage adaptation of We the Living that ran briefly in early 1940. That same year she also became actively involved in politics, first working as a volunteer in the presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie
, then attempting to form a group for conservative intellectuals. As her royalties from earlier projects ran out, she began doing freelance work as a script reader for movie studios. When Rand finally found a publisher, the novel was only one-third complete.
, Rand had difficulty finding a publisher for The Fountainhead. Macmillan Publishing, which had published We the Living, rejected the book after Rand insisted that they must provide more publicity for her new novel than they did for the first one. Rand's agent began submitting the book to other publishers. In 1938, Knopf signed a contract to publish the book, but when Rand was only a quarter done with manuscript by October 1940, Knopf canceled her contract. Several other publishers rejected the book, and Rand's agent began to criticize the novel. Rand fired her agent and decided to handle submissions herself.
While Rand was working as a script reader for Paramount Pictures
, her boss there, Richard Mealand, offered to introduce her to his publishing contacts. He put her in touch with the Bobbs-Merrill Company
. A recently hired editor, Archibald Ogden, liked the book, but two internal reviewers gave conflicting opinions about it. One said it was a great book that would never sell; the other said it was trash but would sell well. Ogden's boss, Bobbs-Merrill president D.L. Chambers, decided to reject the book. Ogden responded by wiring
to the head office, "If this is not the book for you, then I am not the editor for you." His strong stand got a contract for Rand in December 1941. Twelve other publishers had rejected the book.
The Fountainhead was published in May 1943. Initial sales were slow, but as Mimi Reisel Gladstein
described it, sales "grew by word-of-mouth, developing a popularity that asserted itself slowly on the best-seller lists." It reached number six on The New York Times bestseller list in August 1945, over two years after its initial publication.
A 25th anniversary edition was issued by New American Library
in 1971, including a new introduction by Rand. In 1993, a 50th anniversary edition from Bobbs-Merrill added an afterword by Rand's heir, Leonard Peikoff
. By 2008 the novel had sold over 6.5 million copies in English, and it had been translated into several languages.
After Cameron retires from practice, Keating hires Roark to work at his firm, but he is quickly fired for insubordination by Guy Francon. Roark looks for work at other firms before finding one that will let him design as he pleases, but the firm will just take the best aspects of his design and merge his ideas with the ideas and plans of the other draftsmen in the office. After one of Roark's original plans impresses a client, he briefly opens his own office. However, he has trouble finding clients and eventually closes it down rather than compromise his ideals to win business from clients who want more conventional buildings. He takes a job at a Connecticut granite quarry owned by Francon. Meanwhile, Keating has developed an interest in Francon's beautiful, temperamental and idealistic daughter Dominique, who works as a columnist for The New York Banner, a yellow press-style newspaper. While Roark is working in the quarry, he encounters Dominique, who has retreated to her family's estate in the same town as the quarry. There is an immediate attraction between them. Rather than indulge in traditional flirtation, the two engage in a battle of wills that culminates in a rough sexual encounter that Dominique later describes as a rape
. Shortly after their encounter, Roark is notified that a client is ready for him to start on a new building, and he returns to New York before Dominique can learn his name.
Ellsworth M. Toohey, author of a popular architecture column in the Banner, is an outspoken socialist who is covertly rising to power by shaping public opinion through his column and his circle of influential associates. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign he spearheads. As the first step, Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman named Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark as the designer for a temple dedicated to the human spirit. Given full freedom to design it as he sees fit, Roark incorporates into it a statue of Dominique, nude, which creates a public outcry. Toohey manipulates Stoddard into suing Roark for general incompetence and fraud. At the trial, prominent architects (including Keating) testify that Roark's style is unorthodox and illegitimate. Dominique defends Roark, but Stoddard wins the case and Roark loses his business again.
Dominique decides that since she cannot have the world she wants (in which men like Roark are recognized for their greatness), she will live completely and entirely in the world she has, which shuns Roark and praises Keating. She offers Keating her hand in marriage. Keating accepts, breaking his previously long-held engagement with Toohey's niece Catherine, and they are married that evening. Dominique turns her entire spirit over to Keating, hosting the dinners he wants, agreeing with him, and saying whatever he wants her to say. She fights Roark and persuades his potential clients to hire Keating instead. Despite this, Roark continues to attract a small but steady stream of clients who see the value in his work.
To win Keating a prestigious architecture commission offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand then buys Keating's silence and his divorce from Dominique, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wynand subsequently discovers that every building he likes was designed by Roark, so he enlists Roark to build a home for himself and Dominique. The home is built, and Roark and Wynand become close friends, although Wynand does not know about Roark's past relationship with Dominique.
Now washed up and out of the public eye, Keating realizes he is a failure. Rather than accept retirement, he pleads with Toohey for his influence to get the commission for the much-sought-after Cortlandt housing project. Keating knows that his most successful projects were aided by Roark, so he asks for Roark's help in designing Cortlandt. Roark agrees to design it in exchange for complete anonymity and Keating's promise that it will be built exactly as designed.
When Roark returns from a long yacht trip with Wynand, he finds that the Cortlandt design has been changed despite his agreement with Keating. Roark asks Dominique to distract the night watchman and dynamites the building to prevent the subversion of his vision. The entire country condemns Roark, but Wynand finally finds the courage to follow his convictions and orders his newspapers to defend him. The Banners circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique's help. Wynand is eventually faced with the choice of closing the paper or reversing his stance and agreeing to the union demands. He gives in; the newspaper publishes a denunciation of Roark over Wynand's signature.
At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a speech about the value of ego and the need to remain true to oneself. The jury finds him not guilty and Roark wins Dominique. Wynand, who has finally grasped the nature of the "power" he thought he held, shuts down the Banner and asks Roark to design one last building for him, a skyscraper that will testify to the supremacy of man: "Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours...and could have been mine." Eighteen months later, in the spring of 1940, the Wynand Building is well on its way to completion and Dominique, now Roark's wife, enters the site to meet him atop its steel framework.
However, Dominique Francon eventually learns not to let a flawed society and misled zeitgeist inhibit her creative and emotional expression and drive, nor poison her hope in her own ideals. By the end of the novel, Dominique no longer cares what anyone thinks or does. She lives her life for herself and no one else. She learns to love and create freely and passionately, and no longer cares whether the world is worthy of her expression. She has a new world now that is hers alone. Finally, it is the act of creating, loving, and living in which she finds happiness, rather than the results of these successes, no matter how good or bad the recognition may be. It no longer matters what might happen or what others think, because the happiness she finds cannot be taken away from her. Her new world, that in which she sets the standards by which all will live in regards to any association with Dominique, is worthy of her beautiful mind and heart because it belongs to her and no one else, and is shared on her terms alone. That is, Dominique's terms as well as those with the same individualistic, objectivist and uncompromising ideals.
mogul who rose from a destitute childhood in the ghetto
es of New York City
to control much of the city's print media. While Wynand shares many of the character qualities of Roark, his success is dependent upon his ability to pander to public opinion, a flaw which eventually leads to his downfall. In her journals Rand described Wynand as "the man who could have been" a heroic individualist, contrasting him to Roark, "the man who can be and is". Some elements of Wynand's character were inspired by real-life newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst
, including Hearst's mixed success in attempts to gain political influence. Wynand is a tragic figure who ultimately fails in his attempts to wield power, losing his newspaper, his wife, and his friendship with Roark. The character has been interpreted as a representation of Nietzsche's "master morality", and his tragic nature illustrates Rand's rejection of Nietzsche's philosophy. In Rand's view, a person like Wynand, who seeks power over others, is just as much a "second-hander" as a conformist like Keating.
Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, who writes a popular art criticism column, is Roark's antagonist. Toohey is an unabashed collectivist and Rand's personification of evil (when speaking freely, he explicitly compares himself to Goethe's Mephisto
, who tempted Faust
to destruction). Toohey represents the stifling, decadent forces of Communism and Socialism. His biggest threat is the strength of the individual spirit enshrined in Howard Roark. He falsely styles himself as representative of the will of the masses.
Having no true genius, Toohey's mission is to destroy excellence and promote altruism as the ultimate social ideal. This is put forward in one of his most memorable quotes: "Don't set out to raze all shrines—you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity, and the shrines are razed."
Rand used her memory of the British
democratic socialist
Harold Laski
to help her imagine what he would do in a given situation. Lewis Mumford
was also an initial inspiration.
In the biography of Toohey, it is mentioned that in his younger age he aspired to become a clergyman, but abandoned religion after discovering Socialism and considering that it better served his purposes. In that, Toohey's early career parallels that of Joseph Stalin
, who had also trained for the priesthood in his young age - though Toohey's methods are much more subtle than those of the Soviet dictator, and he builds up a formidable power structure without resorting to an outright seizure of power or establishing a secret police apparatus.
Indeed, even when frankly describing the nightmare world which is his ultimate aim ("A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of his neighbor (...) Men will not work for money, but for prestige, the approval of their fellows - not judgment, but public polls") Toohey makes no mention of any overt dictatorship or coercive apparatus. Rather, Toohey's methods throughout the book suggest that such a regime might be able to retain the forms of democracy, multi-party elections and a free press, with actual power held by Toohey-like "informal advisers".
As described in his biography, Toohey had already in early childhood developed a talent for subtly manipulating his parents and elementary school class-mates in order to gain power over them. The adult Toohey - who "never sees men, only forces" (Book II, Ch. 6) - is a master schemer and manipulator who, like a chess master, can devise a gambit and predict many moves in advance. For example, Toohey sets Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark for the construction of his temple - and without having ever spoken to Roark, just by having seen Roark's buildings, Toohey is able to give his proxy Stoddard the arguments which would induce Roark to undertake the job: "It doesn't matter if you don't believe in God, Mr. Roark; you are a profoundly religious man, in your own way. I can see it in your buildings". Having seen Roark's buildings, Toohey has a good idea what kind of temple Roark would construct - and even before Roark ever heard of Stoddard and his temple, Toohey already planned how he would attack the temple once built, get it destroyed and Roark discredited, and transform it into an "institute for subnormal children".
Rand dedicated The Fountainhead to her husband, Frank O'Connor, and to architecture
. She chose architecture for the analogy
it offered to her ideas, especially in the context of the ascent of modern architecture
. It provided an appropriate vehicle to concretize her beliefs that the individual
is of supreme value, the "fountainhead" of creativity, and that selfishness, properly understood as ethical egoism
, is a virtue.
Peter Keating and Howard Roark are character foils. Keating practices in the historical eclectic and neo-classic
mold, even when the building's typology
is a skyscraper
. He follows and pays respect to old traditions. He accommodates the changes suggested by others, mirroring the eclectic directions, and willingness to adapt, current at the turn of the twentieth century. Roark searches for truth and honesty and expresses them in his work. He is uncompromising when changes are suggested, mirroring Modern architecture's trajectory from dissatisfaction with earlier design trends to emphasizing individual creativity. Roark's individuality eulogizes modern architects as uncompromising and heroic. A common speculation is that Roark was inspired by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright
, a claim both Rand and Wright denied. However, in the book Goff on Goff, architect Bruce Goff
, a friend of Wright's, claimed that Roark's character was based on Wright, despite the many differences between them. The most that may be suggested is that some of the descriptions of Roark's buildings, in part, resemble those of Wright: a notable example being the "Heller House" - the first of Roark's designs to be built - cantilevered over the edge of a cliff in a descriptive image reminiscent of Wright's famous Fallingwater
in Pennsylvania.
Rand was a great admirer of Wright's architecture, and she asked that Wright design the sets for the movie based on the novel. However, the price he asked for doing so exceeded the studio's budget. She also commissioned Wright to create a summer home for her. Wright's design featured, appropriately, a large fountain, but it was never built. Wright himself wrote to Rand highly praising the novel, and, later, Rand and her husband also visited Taliesin
at Wright's invitation.
The Fountainhead has been cited by numerous architects as an inspiration for their work. Architect Fred Stitt, founder of the San Francisco Institute of Architecture
, dedicated a book to his "first architectural mentor, Howard Roark". Nader Vossoughian has written that "The Fountainhead... has shaped the public's perception of the architectural profession more than perhaps any other text over this last half-century." According to renowned architectural photographer Julius Shulman
, it was Rand's work that "brought architecture into the public's focus for the first time," and he believes that The Fountainhead was not only influential among 20th century architects, it "was one, first, front and center in the life of every architect who was a modern architect."
review of the novel named Rand "a writer of great power" who writes "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly," and it stated that she had "written a hymn in praise of the individual... you will not be able to read this masterful book without thinking through some of the basic concepts of our time." Benjamin DeCasseres, a columnist for the New York Journal-American, wrote of Roark as "an uncompromising individualist" and "one of the most inspiring characters in modern American literature." Rand sent DeCasseres a letter thanking him for explaining the book's individualistic themes when many other reviewers did not. There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed many of them as either not understanding her message or as being from unimportant publications. A number of negative reviews focused on the length of the novel, such as one that called it "a whale of a book" and another that said "anyone who is taken in by it deserves a stern lecture on paper-rationing." Other negative reviews called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian."
The year 1943 also saw the publication of The God of the Machine
by Isabel Paterson
and The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane
. Rand, Lane and Paterson have been referred to as the founding mothers of the American libertarian movement with the publication of these works. Journalist John Chamberlain
, for example, credits these works with his final "conversion" from socialism
to what he called "an older American philosophy" of libertarian and conservative ideas.
, in her 1975 work Against Our Will, denounced what she called "Rand's philosophy of rape", for portraying women as wanting "humiliation at the hands of a superior man". She called Rand "a traitor to her own sex". Susan Love Brown said the scene presents Rand's view of sex as "as an act of sadomasochism and of feminine subordination and passivity". Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
suggested women who enjoy such "masochistic fantasies" are "damaged" and have low self-esteem. While Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein
found elements to admire in Rand's female protagonists, she said that readers who have "a raised consciousness about the nature of rape" would disapprove of Rand's "romanticized rapes".
Rand denied that what happened in the scene was actually rape, referring to it as "rape by engraved invitation" because Dominique wanted and "invited" the act. A true rape, Rand said, would be "a dreadful crime". Defenders of the novel have agreed with this interpretation. In an essay specifically explaining this scene, Andrew Bernstein
wrote that although there is much "confusion" about it, the descriptions in the novel provide "conclusive" evidence that "Dominique feels an overwhelming attraction to Roark" and "desires desperately to sleep with" him. Individualist feminist Wendy McElroy
said that while Dominique is "thoroughly taken," there is nonetheless "clear indication that Dominique not only consented," but also enjoyed the experience. Both Bernstein and McElroy saw the interpretations of feminists such as Brownmiller as being based in a false understanding of sexuality.
Rand's posthumously published working notes for the novel, which were not known at the time of her debate with feminists, indicate that when she started working on the book in 1936 she conceived of Roark as feeling that Dominique "belonged to him", that "he did not greatly care" about her consent and that "he would be justified" in raping her. "
, and said, "our problem is to find those topics that arise clearly with The Fountainhead and yet do not force us to read it simply through the eyes of Atlas Shrugged."
Among critics who have addressed it, some consider The Fountainhead to be Rand's best novel, such as philosopher Mark Kingwell
, who described The Fountainhead as "Rand's best work—which is not to say it is good." A Village Voice columnist has called it "blatantly tendentious" and described it as containing "heavy-breathing hero worship."
The book has a particular appeal to young people, an appeal that led historian James Baker to describe it as "more important than its detractors think, although not as important as Rand fans imagine." Allan Bloom
has referred to the novel as being "hardly literature," one having a "sub-Nietzschean assertiveness [that] excites somewhat eccentric youngsters to a new way of life." However, he also writes that when he asks his students which books matter to them, there is always someone influenced by The Fountainhead. Journalist Nora Ephron
has written that she had loved the novel when she was 18 but admits that she "missed the point," which she suggested is largely subliminal sexual metaphor. Ephron writes that she decided upon re-reading that "it is better read when one is young enough to miss the point. Otherwise, one cannot help thinking it is a very silly book." Architect David Rockwell
, said that the film adaptation
influenced his interest in architecture and design, and that many architecture students at his university named their dogs Roark as a tribute to the protagonist of the novel and film.
about having a condensed, illustrated version of the novel published for syndication
in newspapers. Rand agreed, provided that she could oversee the editing and approve the proposed illustrations of her characters, which were provided by Frank Godwin
. The 30-part series began on December 24, 1945, and ran in over 35 newspapers.
as Howard Roark, Patricia Neal
as Dominique Francon, Raymond Massey
as Gail Wynand, and Kent Smith
as Peter Keating. The film was directed by King Vidor
. Although Rand wrote the screenplay, which was used with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end," complaining about its editing, acting and other elements.
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
. It was Rand's first major literary success and brought her fame and financial success. More than 6.5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide.
The Fountainheads protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice what the public sees as modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allow the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. Roark is Rand's embodiment of the human spirit, and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.
The manuscript was rejected by twelve publishers before a young editor, Archibald Ogden, at the Bobbs-Merrill Company
Bobbs-Merrill Company
The Bobbs-Merrill Company was a book publisher located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Bobbs-Merrill was known for publishing such authors as Richard Halliburton, David Markson, Ayn Rand, James Whitcomb Riley, Walter Dean Myers, and Irma S. Rombauer. Bobbs-Merrill also published the early works of...
risked his job to get it published. Despite mixed reviews from the contemporary media, the book gained a following by word of mouth and became a bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
. The novel was made into a Hollywood film
The Fountainhead (film)
The Fountainhead is a 1949 American film directed by King Vidor, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Ayn Rand, who wrote the screenplay adaptation....
in 1949. Rand wrote the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
, and Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
played Roark.
Background
In 1928 Rand was charged by Cecil B. DeMilleCecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
with writing a script for what would become the film Skyscraper. The original story, by Dudley Murphy
Dudley Murphy
Dudley Murphy was an American film director. Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts...
, was about two construction workers involved in building a New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
skyscraper who are rivals for a woman's love. Rand rewrote the story, transforming the rivals into architects. One of them, Howard Kane, was an idealist dedicated to his mission and erecting the skyscraper despite enormous obstacles. The film would have ended with Kane throwing back his head in victory, standing atop the completed skyscraper. In the end DeMille rejected Rand's script, and the actual film followed Murphy's original idea, but Rand's version contained elements that she would later use in The Fountainhead.
Rand began The Fountainhead (originally titled Second-Hand Lives) following the completion of her first novel, We the Living
We the Living
We the Living is the first novel published by the Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand. It was also Rand's first statement against communism. First published in 1936, it is a story of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Rand observes in the foreword to this book that We the Living was the closest she...
. While that earlier novel had been based partly on people and events from Rand's experiences, the new novel was to focus on the less-familiar world of architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. Therefore, she did extensive research to develop plot and character ideas. This included reading numerous biographies and books about architecture, and working as an unpaid typist in the office of architect Ely Jacques Kahn
Ely Jacques Kahn
Ely Jacques Kahn was an American commercial architect who designed numerous skyscrapers in New York City in the twentieth century. In addition to buildings intended for commercial use, Kahn's designs ranged throughout the possibilities of architectural programs, including facilities for the film...
.
Rand's intention was to write a novel that was less overtly political than We the Living, to avoid being "considered a 'one-theme' author". As she developed the story, she began to see more political meaning in the novel's ideas about individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
. Rand also initially planned to introduce each chapter with a quote from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, whose ideas had influenced her own intellectual development. However, she eventually decided that Nietzsche's ideas were too different from her own. The quotes were not placed in the published novel, and she edited the final manuscript to remove other allusions to him.
Rand's work on The Fountainhead was repeatedly interrupted. In 1937 she took a break from it to write a novella called Anthem
Anthem (novella)
Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand, written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in England. It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age characterized by irrationality, collectivism, and socialistic thinking and economics...
. She also completed a stage adaptation of We the Living that ran briefly in early 1940. That same year she also became actively involved in politics, first working as a volunteer in the presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...
, then attempting to form a group for conservative intellectuals. As her royalties from earlier projects ran out, she began doing freelance work as a script reader for movie studios. When Rand finally found a publisher, the novel was only one-third complete.
Publication history
Although she was a previously published novelist and had a successful Broadway playNight of January 16th
Night of January 16th is a play written by Ayn Rand, inspired by the death of the "Match King", Ivar Kreuger. First produced under a different name in 1934, it takes place entirely in a court room and is centered on a murder trial. It was a hit of the 1935-36 Broadway season...
, Rand had difficulty finding a publisher for The Fountainhead. Macmillan Publishing, which had published We the Living, rejected the book after Rand insisted that they must provide more publicity for her new novel than they did for the first one. Rand's agent began submitting the book to other publishers. In 1938, Knopf signed a contract to publish the book, but when Rand was only a quarter done with manuscript by October 1940, Knopf canceled her contract. Several other publishers rejected the book, and Rand's agent began to criticize the novel. Rand fired her agent and decided to handle submissions herself.
While Rand was working as a script reader for Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, her boss there, Richard Mealand, offered to introduce her to his publishing contacts. He put her in touch with the Bobbs-Merrill Company
Bobbs-Merrill Company
The Bobbs-Merrill Company was a book publisher located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Bobbs-Merrill was known for publishing such authors as Richard Halliburton, David Markson, Ayn Rand, James Whitcomb Riley, Walter Dean Myers, and Irma S. Rombauer. Bobbs-Merrill also published the early works of...
. A recently hired editor, Archibald Ogden, liked the book, but two internal reviewers gave conflicting opinions about it. One said it was a great book that would never sell; the other said it was trash but would sell well. Ogden's boss, Bobbs-Merrill president D.L. Chambers, decided to reject the book. Ogden responded by wiring
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
to the head office, "If this is not the book for you, then I am not the editor for you." His strong stand got a contract for Rand in December 1941. Twelve other publishers had rejected the book.
The Fountainhead was published in May 1943. Initial sales were slow, but as Mimi Reisel Gladstein
Mimi Reisel Gladstein
Mimi Reisel Gladstein is a professor of English and Theatre Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her specialties include authors such as Ayn Rand and John Steinbeck, as well as women's studies, theatre arts and 18th-century British literature.-Life and scholarship:Gladstein was born in...
described it, sales "grew by word-of-mouth, developing a popularity that asserted itself slowly on the best-seller lists." It reached number six on The New York Times bestseller list in August 1945, over two years after its initial publication.
A 25th anniversary edition was issued by New American Library
New American Library
New American Library is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948; it produced affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works, as well as popular, pulp, and "hard-boiled" fiction. Non-fiction, original, and hardcopy issues were also produced.Victor Weybright and Kurt...
in 1971, including a new introduction by Rand. In 1993, a 50th anniversary edition from Bobbs-Merrill added an afterword by Rand's heir, Leonard Peikoff
Leonard Peikoff
Leonard S. Peikoff is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is an author, a leading advocate of Objectivism and the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. A former professor of philosophy, he was designated by the novelist Ayn Rand as heir to her estate...
. By 2008 the novel had sold over 6.5 million copies in English, and it had been translated into several languages.
Plot summary
In the spring of 1922, architecture student Howard Roark is expelled from the fictional Stanton Institute of Technology for refusing to abide by its outdated traditions. Despite an effort by some professors to defend Roark and a subsequent offer to continue at Stanton from the dean, Roark chooses to leave the school. He goes to New York City to work for Henry Cameron, a disgraced architect whom Roark admires. Cameron, who once was architecture's modernist hero, has fallen from fame due to the fickle demands of society and his own caustic personality. His work serves as an inspiration for Roark. Peter Keating, a popular but vacuous fellow student, has graduated with high honors; he too moves to New York, where he takes a job at the prestigious architectural firm of Francon & Heyer and quickly ingratiates himself with senior partner Guy Francon. Roark and Cameron create inspired work, but their projects rarely receive recognition, whereas Keating's ability to flatter and please brings him quick success (despite his lack of originality) and earns him a partnership in the firm.After Cameron retires from practice, Keating hires Roark to work at his firm, but he is quickly fired for insubordination by Guy Francon. Roark looks for work at other firms before finding one that will let him design as he pleases, but the firm will just take the best aspects of his design and merge his ideas with the ideas and plans of the other draftsmen in the office. After one of Roark's original plans impresses a client, he briefly opens his own office. However, he has trouble finding clients and eventually closes it down rather than compromise his ideals to win business from clients who want more conventional buildings. He takes a job at a Connecticut granite quarry owned by Francon. Meanwhile, Keating has developed an interest in Francon's beautiful, temperamental and idealistic daughter Dominique, who works as a columnist for The New York Banner, a yellow press-style newspaper. While Roark is working in the quarry, he encounters Dominique, who has retreated to her family's estate in the same town as the quarry. There is an immediate attraction between them. Rather than indulge in traditional flirtation, the two engage in a battle of wills that culminates in a rough sexual encounter that Dominique later describes as a rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
. Shortly after their encounter, Roark is notified that a client is ready for him to start on a new building, and he returns to New York before Dominique can learn his name.
Ellsworth M. Toohey, author of a popular architecture column in the Banner, is an outspoken socialist who is covertly rising to power by shaping public opinion through his column and his circle of influential associates. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign he spearheads. As the first step, Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman named Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark as the designer for a temple dedicated to the human spirit. Given full freedom to design it as he sees fit, Roark incorporates into it a statue of Dominique, nude, which creates a public outcry. Toohey manipulates Stoddard into suing Roark for general incompetence and fraud. At the trial, prominent architects (including Keating) testify that Roark's style is unorthodox and illegitimate. Dominique defends Roark, but Stoddard wins the case and Roark loses his business again.
Dominique decides that since she cannot have the world she wants (in which men like Roark are recognized for their greatness), she will live completely and entirely in the world she has, which shuns Roark and praises Keating. She offers Keating her hand in marriage. Keating accepts, breaking his previously long-held engagement with Toohey's niece Catherine, and they are married that evening. Dominique turns her entire spirit over to Keating, hosting the dinners he wants, agreeing with him, and saying whatever he wants her to say. She fights Roark and persuades his potential clients to hire Keating instead. Despite this, Roark continues to attract a small but steady stream of clients who see the value in his work.
To win Keating a prestigious architecture commission offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand then buys Keating's silence and his divorce from Dominique, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wynand subsequently discovers that every building he likes was designed by Roark, so he enlists Roark to build a home for himself and Dominique. The home is built, and Roark and Wynand become close friends, although Wynand does not know about Roark's past relationship with Dominique.
Now washed up and out of the public eye, Keating realizes he is a failure. Rather than accept retirement, he pleads with Toohey for his influence to get the commission for the much-sought-after Cortlandt housing project. Keating knows that his most successful projects were aided by Roark, so he asks for Roark's help in designing Cortlandt. Roark agrees to design it in exchange for complete anonymity and Keating's promise that it will be built exactly as designed.
When Roark returns from a long yacht trip with Wynand, he finds that the Cortlandt design has been changed despite his agreement with Keating. Roark asks Dominique to distract the night watchman and dynamites the building to prevent the subversion of his vision. The entire country condemns Roark, but Wynand finally finds the courage to follow his convictions and orders his newspapers to defend him. The Banners circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique's help. Wynand is eventually faced with the choice of closing the paper or reversing his stance and agreeing to the union demands. He gives in; the newspaper publishes a denunciation of Roark over Wynand's signature.
At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a speech about the value of ego and the need to remain true to oneself. The jury finds him not guilty and Roark wins Dominique. Wynand, who has finally grasped the nature of the "power" he thought he held, shuts down the Banner and asks Roark to design one last building for him, a skyscraper that will testify to the supremacy of man: "Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours...and could have been mine." Eighteen months later, in the spring of 1940, the Wynand Building is well on its way to completion and Dominique, now Roark's wife, enters the site to meet him atop its steel framework.
Howard Roark
As the protagonist and hero in the book, Roark is an aspiring architect who firmly believes that a person must be a "prime mover" to achieve pure art, not mitigated by others, as opposed to councils or committees of individuals which lead to compromise and mediocrity and a "watering down" of a prime mover's completed vision. He represents the triumph of individualism over the slow stagnation of collectivism. Bowing to no one, Roark rises from an unknown architect who was kicked out of school for "drawing outside of the lines". It is widely believed that Rand modeled the character of Howard Roark after Frank Lloyd Wright. The descriptions of the character also have much in common with her earlier writings influenced by the murderer William Edward Hickman. Roark goes on to design many landmark buildings, and rails against convention. He is eventually arrested and brought to trial for dynamiting a building he designed, but whose design was compromised by other architects brought in to negate his vision of the project. During his trial, Roark delivers a speech condemning "second-handers" and declaring the superiority of prime movers; he prevails and is vindicated by the jury.Peter Keating
Peter Keating is also an aspiring architect, but is everything that Roark is not. His original inclination was to become an artist, but his opportunistic mother pushes him toward architecture where he might have greater material success. Even by Roark's own admission, Keating does possess some creative and intellectual abilities, but is stifled by his sycophantic pursuit of wealth over morals. His willingness to build what others wish leads him to temporary success. He attends architecture school with Roark, who helps him with some of his less inspired projects. He is subservient to the wills of others: Dominique Francon's father, the architectural establishment, his mother, even Roark himself. Keating is "a man who never could be, but doesn't know it". The one sincere thing in Keating's life is his love for Catherine Halsey, Ellsworth Toohey's niece. Though she offers to introduce Keating to Toohey, he initially refuses despite the fact that such an introduction would help his career. It is the only exception to his otherwise relentless and ruthless ambition, which includes bullying and threatening to blackmail a sick old man and unintentionally causing his death. Although Keating does have a conscience, and oftentimes does genuinely feel bad after doing certain things he knows are immoral, he only feels this way in hindsight, and doesn't allow his morals to influence current decision making. Keating's offer to elope with Catherine is his one chance to act on what he believes is his own desire. But, Dominique arrives at that precise moment and offers to marry him for her own reasons, and his acceptance of the offer and betrayal of Catherine ends the potential of romance between them. His acceptance of Dominique's offer of marriage, which would help his career far more than a marriage with Catherine, is a quintessential example of his failure to stand up for his own convictions.Dominique Francon
Dominique Francon is the heroine of The Fountainhead, described by Rand as "the woman for a man like Howard Roark." Dominique is the daughter of Guy Francon, a highly successful but creatively inhibited architect. She is a thorn in the flesh of her father and causes him much distress for her works criticizing the architectural profession's mediocrity. Peter Keating is employed by her father, and her intelligence, insight and observations are above his. It is only through Roark that her love of adversity and autonomy meets a worthy equal. These strengths are also what she initially lets stifle her growth and make her life miserable. She begins thinking that the world did not deserve her sincerity and intellect, because the people around her did not measure up to her standards. She starts out punishing the world and herself for all the things about man which she despises, through self-defeating behavior. She initially believes that greatness, such as Roark's, is doomed to fail and will be destroyed by the 'collectivist' masses around them. She eventually joins Roark romantically, but before she can do this, she must learn to join him in his perspective and purpose.However, Dominique Francon eventually learns not to let a flawed society and misled zeitgeist inhibit her creative and emotional expression and drive, nor poison her hope in her own ideals. By the end of the novel, Dominique no longer cares what anyone thinks or does. She lives her life for herself and no one else. She learns to love and create freely and passionately, and no longer cares whether the world is worthy of her expression. She has a new world now that is hers alone. Finally, it is the act of creating, loving, and living in which she finds happiness, rather than the results of these successes, no matter how good or bad the recognition may be. It no longer matters what might happen or what others think, because the happiness she finds cannot be taken away from her. Her new world, that in which she sets the standards by which all will live in regards to any association with Dominique, is worthy of her beautiful mind and heart because it belongs to her and no one else, and is shared on her terms alone. That is, Dominique's terms as well as those with the same individualistic, objectivist and uncompromising ideals.
Gail Wynand
Gail Wynand is a wealthy newspaperNewspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
mogul who rose from a destitute childhood in the ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
es of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to control much of the city's print media. While Wynand shares many of the character qualities of Roark, his success is dependent upon his ability to pander to public opinion, a flaw which eventually leads to his downfall. In her journals Rand described Wynand as "the man who could have been" a heroic individualist, contrasting him to Roark, "the man who can be and is". Some elements of Wynand's character were inspired by real-life newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
, including Hearst's mixed success in attempts to gain political influence. Wynand is a tragic figure who ultimately fails in his attempts to wield power, losing his newspaper, his wife, and his friendship with Roark. The character has been interpreted as a representation of Nietzsche's "master morality", and his tragic nature illustrates Rand's rejection of Nietzsche's philosophy. In Rand's view, a person like Wynand, who seeks power over others, is just as much a "second-hander" as a conformist like Keating.
Ellsworth Toohey
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
, who tempted Faust
Goethe's Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...
to destruction). Toohey represents the stifling, decadent forces of Communism and Socialism. His biggest threat is the strength of the individual spirit enshrined in Howard Roark. He falsely styles himself as representative of the will of the masses.
Aiming at a society that shall be "an average drawn upon zeroes," he knows exactly why he corrupts Peter Keating, and explains his methods to the ruined young man in a passage that is a pyrotechnical display of the fascist mind at its best and its worst; the use of the ideal of altruism to destroy personal integrity, the use of humor and tolerance to destroy all standards, the use of sacrifice to enslave.
Having no true genius, Toohey's mission is to destroy excellence and promote altruism as the ultimate social ideal. This is put forward in one of his most memorable quotes: "Don't set out to raze all shrines—you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity, and the shrines are razed."
Rand used her memory of the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
democratic socialist
Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...
Harold Laski
Harold Laski
Harold Joseph Laski was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950....
to help her imagine what he would do in a given situation. Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford was an American historian, philosopher of technology, and influential literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer...
was also an initial inspiration.
In the biography of Toohey, it is mentioned that in his younger age he aspired to become a clergyman, but abandoned religion after discovering Socialism and considering that it better served his purposes. In that, Toohey's early career parallels that of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, who had also trained for the priesthood in his young age - though Toohey's methods are much more subtle than those of the Soviet dictator, and he builds up a formidable power structure without resorting to an outright seizure of power or establishing a secret police apparatus.
Indeed, even when frankly describing the nightmare world which is his ultimate aim ("A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of his neighbor (...) Men will not work for money, but for prestige, the approval of their fellows - not judgment, but public polls") Toohey makes no mention of any overt dictatorship or coercive apparatus. Rather, Toohey's methods throughout the book suggest that such a regime might be able to retain the forms of democracy, multi-party elections and a free press, with actual power held by Toohey-like "informal advisers".
As described in his biography, Toohey had already in early childhood developed a talent for subtly manipulating his parents and elementary school class-mates in order to gain power over them. The adult Toohey - who "never sees men, only forces" (Book II, Ch. 6) - is a master schemer and manipulator who, like a chess master, can devise a gambit and predict many moves in advance. For example, Toohey sets Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark for the construction of his temple - and without having ever spoken to Roark, just by having seen Roark's buildings, Toohey is able to give his proxy Stoddard the arguments which would induce Roark to undertake the job: "It doesn't matter if you don't believe in God, Mr. Roark; you are a profoundly religious man, in your own way. I can see it in your buildings". Having seen Roark's buildings, Toohey has a good idea what kind of temple Roark would construct - and even before Roark ever heard of Stoddard and his temple, Toohey already planned how he would attack the temple once built, get it destroyed and Roark discredited, and transform it into an "institute for subnormal children".
Minor Characters
- Henry Cameron: Roark's architect mentor and employer
- Catherine Halsey: Keating's fiancee and Toohey's niece
- Guy Francon: Dominique's father and Keating's employer and business partner
- Stephen Mallory: A disillusioned sculptor who tries to kill Toohey but later regains his confidence with the help of Roark
- Alvah Scarret: Wynand's editor-in-chief
- Mrs. Keating: Keating's overbearing and manipulative mother
- The Dean: The dean of the Stanton Institute of Technology architecture school
- John Erik Snyte: An employer of Roark's that uses a group of five designers to create a final sketch
- Mike Donnigan: An electrician who admires competence and and is an independent thinker
- Austen Heller: An individualistic thinker who hires Roark and becomes one of his biggest allies.
Individualism
Rand indicated that the primary theme of The Fountainhead was "individualism versus collectivism, not in politics but within a man's soul." Apart from scenes such as Roark's courtroom defense of the American concept of individual rights, she avoided direct discussion of political issues. As historian James Baker described it, "The Fountainhead hardly mentions politics or economics, despite the fact that it was born in the 1930s. Nor does it deal with world affairs, although it was written during World War II. It is about one man against the system, and it does not permit other matters to intrude."Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. She chose architecture for the analogy
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
it offered to her ideas, especially in the context of the ascent of modern architecture
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
. It provided an appropriate vehicle to concretize her beliefs that the individual
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
is of supreme value, the "fountainhead" of creativity, and that selfishness, properly understood as ethical egoism
Ethical egoism
Ethical egoism is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism, which claims that people can only act in their self-interest. Ethical egoism also differs from rational egoism, which holds merely that it is...
, is a virtue.
Peter Keating and Howard Roark are character foils. Keating practices in the historical eclectic and neo-classic
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
mold, even when the building's typology
Typology (archaeology)
In archaeology a typology is the result of the classification of things according to their characteristics. The products of the classification, i.e. the classes are also called types. Most archaeological typologies organize artifacts into types, but typologies of houses or roads belonging to a...
is a skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
. He follows and pays respect to old traditions. He accommodates the changes suggested by others, mirroring the eclectic directions, and willingness to adapt, current at the turn of the twentieth century. Roark searches for truth and honesty and expresses them in his work. He is uncompromising when changes are suggested, mirroring Modern architecture's trajectory from dissatisfaction with earlier design trends to emphasizing individual creativity. Roark's individuality eulogizes modern architects as uncompromising and heroic. A common speculation is that Roark was inspired by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, a claim both Rand and Wright denied. However, in the book Goff on Goff, architect Bruce Goff
Bruce Goff
Bruce Alonzo Goff was an American architect distinguished by his organic, eclectic, and often flamboyant designs for houses and other buildings in Oklahoma and elsewhere.-Early years:...
, a friend of Wright's, claimed that Roark's character was based on Wright, despite the many differences between them. The most that may be suggested is that some of the descriptions of Roark's buildings, in part, resemble those of Wright: a notable example being the "Heller House" - the first of Roark's designs to be built - cantilevered over the edge of a cliff in a descriptive image reminiscent of Wright's famous Fallingwater
Fallingwater
Fallingwater or Kaufmann Residence is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh...
in Pennsylvania.
Rand was a great admirer of Wright's architecture, and she asked that Wright design the sets for the movie based on the novel. However, the price he asked for doing so exceeded the studio's budget. She also commissioned Wright to create a summer home for her. Wright's design featured, appropriately, a large fountain, but it was never built. Wright himself wrote to Rand highly praising the novel, and, later, Rand and her husband also visited Taliesin
Taliesin (studio)
Taliesin , near Spring Green, Wisconsin, was the summer home of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright began the building in 1911 after leaving his first wife, Catherine Tobin, and his Oak Park, Illinois, home and studio in 1909. The impetus behind Wright's departure was his affair with...
at Wright's invitation.
The Fountainhead has been cited by numerous architects as an inspiration for their work. Architect Fred Stitt, founder of the San Francisco Institute of Architecture
San Francisco Institute of Architecture
The San Francisco Institute of Architecture was founded in 1990 by Fred A. Stitt, architect, as a school devoted to innovation in design and experimental research and reform in architectural education. Its goal: to offer a new kind of architectural education, grounded in nature-based architecture...
, dedicated a book to his "first architectural mentor, Howard Roark". Nader Vossoughian has written that "The Fountainhead... has shaped the public's perception of the architectural profession more than perhaps any other text over this last half-century." According to renowned architectural photographer Julius Shulman
Julius Shulman
Julius Shulman was an American architectural photographer best known for his photograph "Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, 1960. Pierre Koenig, Architect." The house is also known as The Stahl House. Shulman's photography spread California Mid-century modern around the world...
, it was Rand's work that "brought architecture into the public's focus for the first time," and he believes that The Fountainhead was not only influential among 20th century architects, it "was one, first, front and center in the life of every architect who was a modern architect."
Contemporary reception
The Fountainhead received extremely mixed reviews when it was released. The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
review of the novel named Rand "a writer of great power" who writes "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly," and it stated that she had "written a hymn in praise of the individual... you will not be able to read this masterful book without thinking through some of the basic concepts of our time." Benjamin DeCasseres, a columnist for the New York Journal-American, wrote of Roark as "an uncompromising individualist" and "one of the most inspiring characters in modern American literature." Rand sent DeCasseres a letter thanking him for explaining the book's individualistic themes when many other reviewers did not. There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed many of them as either not understanding her message or as being from unimportant publications. A number of negative reviews focused on the length of the novel, such as one that called it "a whale of a book" and another that said "anyone who is taken in by it deserves a stern lecture on paper-rationing." Other negative reviews called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian."
The year 1943 also saw the publication of The God of the Machine
The God of the Machine
The God of the Machine is a book written by Isabel Paterson and published in 1943. At the time of its release, it was considered a cornerstone to the philosophy of individualism. Her biographer Stephen D...
by Isabel Paterson
Isabel Paterson
Isabel Paterson was a Canadian-American journalist, novelist, political philosopher, and a leading literary critic of her day. Along with Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand, who both acknowledged an intellectual debt to Paterson, she is one of the three founding mothers of American libertarianism...
and The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane
Rose Wilder Lane
Rose Wilder Lane was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, and political theorist...
. Rand, Lane and Paterson have been referred to as the founding mothers of the American libertarian movement with the publication of these works. Journalist John Chamberlain
John Chamberlain (journalist)
John Rensselaer Chamberlain was an American journalist, historian of business and the economy, and literary critic, dubbed "one of America’s most trusted book reviewers."-Early life:...
, for example, credits these works with his final "conversion" from socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
to what he called "an older American philosophy" of libertarian and conservative ideas.
Responses to the rape scene
One of the most controversial elements of the book is the rape scene between Roark and Dominique. Feminist critics have attacked the scene as representative of an anti-feminist viewpoint in Rand's works that makes women subservient to men. Susan BrownmillerSusan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use,...
, in her 1975 work Against Our Will, denounced what she called "Rand's philosophy of rape", for portraying women as wanting "humiliation at the hands of a superior man". She called Rand "a traitor to her own sex". Susan Love Brown said the scene presents Rand's view of sex as "as an act of sadomasochism and of feminine subordination and passivity". Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison was an American journalist, essayist and memoirist. She is best known for her autobiographical work, particularly her account of growing up as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and for her travel writing.- Early life :Barbara Grizzuti was born in Queens, New York City, on 14...
suggested women who enjoy such "masochistic fantasies" are "damaged" and have low self-esteem. While Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein
Mimi Reisel Gladstein
Mimi Reisel Gladstein is a professor of English and Theatre Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her specialties include authors such as Ayn Rand and John Steinbeck, as well as women's studies, theatre arts and 18th-century British literature.-Life and scholarship:Gladstein was born in...
found elements to admire in Rand's female protagonists, she said that readers who have "a raised consciousness about the nature of rape" would disapprove of Rand's "romanticized rapes".
Rand denied that what happened in the scene was actually rape, referring to it as "rape by engraved invitation" because Dominique wanted and "invited" the act. A true rape, Rand said, would be "a dreadful crime". Defenders of the novel have agreed with this interpretation. In an essay specifically explaining this scene, Andrew Bernstein
Andrew Bernstein
Andrew Bernstein is a proponent of Ayn Rand's "Objectivism", an author, and a professor of philosophy.Bernstein holds a PhD in philosophy and is the author of The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic, and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire, Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Case for...
wrote that although there is much "confusion" about it, the descriptions in the novel provide "conclusive" evidence that "Dominique feels an overwhelming attraction to Roark" and "desires desperately to sleep with" him. Individualist feminist Wendy McElroy
Wendy McElroy
Wendy McElroy is a Canadian individualist anarchist and individualist feminist. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of The Voluntaryist in 1982.-Sex-positive:...
said that while Dominique is "thoroughly taken," there is nonetheless "clear indication that Dominique not only consented," but also enjoyed the experience. Both Bernstein and McElroy saw the interpretations of feminists such as Brownmiller as being based in a false understanding of sexuality.
Rand's posthumously published working notes for the novel, which were not known at the time of her debate with feminists, indicate that when she started working on the book in 1936 she conceived of Roark as feeling that Dominique "belonged to him", that "he did not greatly care" about her consent and that "he would be justified" in raping her. "
Cultural influence
The Fountainhead has continued to have strong sales throughout the last century into the current one, and has been referenced in a variety of popular entertainment, including movies, television series and other novels. Despite its popularity, it has received relatively little ongoing critical attention. Assessing the novel's legacy, philosopher Douglas Den Uyl described The Fountainhead as relatively neglected compared to her later novel, Atlas ShruggedAtlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing...
, and said, "our problem is to find those topics that arise clearly with The Fountainhead and yet do not force us to read it simply through the eyes of Atlas Shrugged."
Among critics who have addressed it, some consider The Fountainhead to be Rand's best novel, such as philosopher Mark Kingwell
Mark Kingwell
Mark Gerald Kingwell, M.Litt, M.Phil, PhD, D.F.A. is a Canadian professor of philosophy and associate chair at the University of Toronto's Department of Philosophy. Kingwell is a fellow of Trinity College...
, who described The Fountainhead as "Rand's best work—which is not to say it is good." A Village Voice columnist has called it "blatantly tendentious" and described it as containing "heavy-breathing hero worship."
The book has a particular appeal to young people, an appeal that led historian James Baker to describe it as "more important than its detractors think, although not as important as Rand fans imagine." Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom was an American philosopher, classicist, and academic. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Yale University, École Normale Supérieure of Paris, and the University...
has referred to the novel as being "hardly literature," one having a "sub-Nietzschean assertiveness [that] excites somewhat eccentric youngsters to a new way of life." However, he also writes that when he asks his students which books matter to them, there is always someone influenced by The Fountainhead. Journalist Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, journalist, author, and blogger.She is best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in...
has written that she had loved the novel when she was 18 but admits that she "missed the point," which she suggested is largely subliminal sexual metaphor. Ephron writes that she decided upon re-reading that "it is better read when one is young enough to miss the point. Otherwise, one cannot help thinking it is a very silly book." Architect David Rockwell
David Rockwell
David Rockwell is an American architect and designer, who is the founder and CEO of Rockwell Group, based in New York with satellite offices in Madrid and Dubai. Rockwell has long been fascinated with immersive environments.-Early life and education:...
, said that the film adaptation
The Fountainhead (film)
The Fountainhead is a 1949 American film directed by King Vidor, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Ayn Rand, who wrote the screenplay adaptation....
influenced his interest in architecture and design, and that many architecture students at his university named their dogs Roark as a tribute to the protagonist of the novel and film.
Illustrated version
In 1945, Rand was approached by King Features SyndicateKing Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
about having a condensed, illustrated version of the novel published for syndication
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
in newspapers. Rand agreed, provided that she could oversee the editing and approve the proposed illustrations of her characters, which were provided by Frank Godwin
Frank Godwin
Francis Godwin , better known as Frank Godwin, was an American illustrator and comic strip artist, notable for his strip Connie and his book illustrations for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood and King Arthur...
. The 30-part series began on December 24, 1945, and ran in over 35 newspapers.
Film version
In 1949, Warner Brothers released a film based on the book, starring Gary CooperGary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
as Howard Roark, Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's , middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud , for which she won...
as Dominique Francon, Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
as Gail Wynand, and Kent Smith
Kent Smith
Kent Smith was an American actor who had a lengthy career in film, theater, and television.Born Frank Kent Smith in New York, New York, Smith made his acting debut on Broadway in 1932 in and, after spending a few years there, moved to Hollywood, California, where he made his film debut in The...
as Peter Keating. The film was directed by King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
. Although Rand wrote the screenplay, which was used with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end," complaining about its editing, acting and other elements.
See also
- LibertarianismLibertarianismLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
- Objectivism (Ayn Rand)Objectivism (Ayn Rand)Objectivism is a philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand . Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception...
- Rational egoismRational egoismIn ethical philosophy, rational egoism is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest. The view is a normative form of egoism. However, it is different from other forms of egoism, such as ethical egoism and psychological egoism...
- Romantic realismRomantic realismRomantic realism is an aesthetic term that usually refers to art which combines elements of both romanticism and realism. The terms "romanticism" and "realism" have been used in varied ways, and are sometimes seen as opposed to one another....
Works cited
Reprinted inForeign language translations
- CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
: Zdroj, published by Berlet, 2000.
External links
- "Ayn Rand Novels: The Fountainhead (1943)" (Ayn Rand Institute)
- "Howard Roark from The Fountainhead" by Chris Matthew Sciabarra (The Atlas Society)
- Annual The Fountainhead essay contest (Ayn Rand Institute)