The Fountainhead

Author: Ayn Rand
Date Finished: April 18, 2025
Rating: 4.5/5

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Overview

In The Fountainhead, I was struck by the depth of the characters overall and the cunning evil from a particular one, and how applicable everything was to modern society.

Howard Roark

The most obvious choice to start with, Roark isn’t just a protagonist, he represents Rand’s idealistic version of what a man should be.

Critics generally point to a lack of empathy in this character and the book in general, but I think they completely miss the point.

Roark isn’t motivated by other’s perceptions of him, fame, money, power, or any of the usual suspects. He lives to live. He makes buildings to make buildings. He eats to eat. He embodies a view of man that doesn’t care what others think of him, but does what’s right, regardless of the consequences. He thinks humans are wonderful, not terrible, and praises their achievements.

In modern society, humans are seen as corrupt and evil and a plague to nature and the Earth as a whole. Roark rejects that view. Why should we lower ourselves instead of lifting up the world around us?

It’s an interesting concept, and gave me a lot to think about.

Here’s one of his iconic quotes.

“I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.”

Dominique Francon

When thinking of Dominique, the passionate daughter of a wayward Architect, most people can’t get past the rape scene. And I get it, it’s a weird concept that I just can’t agree with.

But the symbolism of the book is still there, even in that scene, among many of her others. It’s probably a representation of submitting, even if it’s a crude one.

In many of her other acts, she shows her ability to be a strong, independent woman, yet can’t seem to escape the idea that the world always beats independent thinkers, which is why she can’t be with Roark until the end of the book, when he beats the world.

Peter Keating

Peter is one of the most well-written characters, because it’s such an honest, if slightly symbolic take of modern men. I also hate to admit it, but I see some of myself in him.

He’s smart and funny at times, but he’s a complete coward, and sacrifices everything for fame and notoriety. In the end, he’s shoved aside for the new thing, and loses everything, and everyone, he ever cared about.

To me, he symbolizes a cautionary tale of never putting aside your beliefs or morals for the sake of gaining attention.

Ellsworth Toohey

One of the most cunning and evil characters I’ve ever seen put on a page. I hated him, and the entire time I just hoped that another Stephen Mallory would actually succeed in killing him.

He represents the quiet, manipulative evil, that puts on a front of charity and good fortune but actual wants control and submission. I see this a lot in modern celebrities and politicians, who promote their charities and then end up using them to get what they want, not to help anyone.

Here’s a quote from him later on in the book.

"Kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can't be ruled. We don't want any great men. Don't deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept - and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection.... Don't set out to raze all shrines-you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity-and the shrines are razed."

Gail Wynand

A very recognizable character in modern society. A powerful person, with the ideals of Howard Roark initially, but who forgoes those morals to gain power, and loses everything in the process.

It’s a cautionary tale, and makes you wonder—if you had everything he did, would you sacrifice it all for your beliefs and start again?

Some Other Thoughts

Buildings should be beautiful, and should serve the purpose with which they’re meant to serve. We should want a society full of beauty, and we should go about building it.

“Architecture is the very mirror of life. You only have to cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past, the spirit of a place; they are the reflection of society.”
—I. M. Pei

I love this quote because it shows that I. M. Pei, the creator of buildings like the Dallas City Hall, the Louvre Pyramid, and my favorite, the Luce Memorial Chapel, understood that Architecture is deeply intertwined with the health of a society.

For a long time we’ve had ugly buildings and cars, and I think it’s only recently that people started beginning to wake up from The Great Stagnation.

The Fountainhead is an excellent book, even if I didn’t agree with all of its conclusions.

In the words of Marc Andreessen, “you can read Rand without becoming an Objectivist.”