Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” Essay, Research Paper
Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”
Imagine power as a form of free flowing energy, a source found within every one
and for each individual. Assume that to gain power, one has to tap this
resevoir of immense proportions and relish upon the rich harvest to their hearts
desires. Consequently, when there is such a dealing of concentrated materials,
nature takes charge and similarly to other physical abstracts, rendering this
package lethal, with the potential for untold destruction. In other words,
power in the wrong hands or power without responsibility is the most harzardous
weapon mankind can possess.
To say that power is a medium out of control and pertaining to something with
incredible destruction, is rather quite true. Assuming that every one and
anyone has the potential to be entitle to a share of this universal medium.
Then it would be justifiable to claim that like any other unmoderated activities,
raging amibition for power uncontroled could wreak havoc and acts as a catalyst
in the breakdown of a society. Similar to politics which deals with the static
physical component of society, there must be a more formidable source of
pervailance over the mystical realm of power. There fore, this form of guidance
can only exist from the mind, and as product of thought, thus the ideas within
a philosophy.
The Ideals warp between the covers of, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand’s
philosophical revolution of Individualistic power, is her solution to society’s
request for a cure. She believe that the highest order of power stands above
all alternatives as the power belonging to an individual and her mission is to
prove the greatness of individualist power within the hero she christain the
name Roark.
Rational thinkers, do not make decisions in a give or take scenario, but instead
they carefully distinguish between be extremes of the Black, the White, and the
median Gray. The Fountainhead, simulates the world as a whitches cauldron,
filled with many evils, among which only one true and worthy victor can pervail.
Ayn Rand explores the many facets of power within a structural community,
relying upon her philosolophy as a test-bed and a believable standard.
In essence the portfolio of The Fountainhead, contains, four major fronts of
power, each dominated by a type of relative character and characteristics.
Manipulative Power entitle itself to be crown the champion of false promises
and deciet. The Power of Green or power due to money is difficult to achieve
and deserve honorable mentioning, yet it is a virtual power built upon wealth.
Worst of all evil in man’s search for power lies behind the mask of a man built
on betrayal, resorting to self-deprivation for prestige and the selling of
oneself to fame. The true power belongs to an individualist, who fights for
himself, lives for himself and is Rand’s answer to the plea of the people.
Subjecting to visualization, this could be interpret in the form of a compass
rose with its four extended arms representing each front of power, converging
onto a center of origin. This origin is the birth place of all men. Attaining
power is a rather lenghthy, delicate process and is likely prone to failure.
Life’s goal is determining of one direction and that single path can represent
an arm of the rose. Simply it may seem not too difficult to make the correct
choice, yet many fail to do so.
Ironically, Ayn Rand play the role of a mischieve when she weave such a
believable character to represent the cold, uncompassionate, and power hungry
Manipulator. She fool the reader to believe that Ellsworth Toohey, a successful
and very influential member of society, is a worthy man, fighting for the cause
of the human kind. His generosity and sacreficial offerings are only cover-ups
from his true nature, the impulsive liar who strive on manipulating others for
power.
Physically Toohey is described as a weak man, apparent only through the power of
his mind. According to Rand, a wholesome, powerful character has to unify both
the mental and physical hemispheres. Toohey is a man that could have been, yet
upon his own choosing, warp himself into something beyond rescue. Toohey is a
very dangerous man. Dangerous because he knows the weakness in other men and
uses this porthole as a point of attack. His aim, is the breakdown of another’s
soul and thus in this way he gain power over them. Toohey can be rank above
the most tyrant Monarchs and the worst dictators in history. His ambition is
not only to physically own people, but the possession of their very souls. In a
confession to one of his victim he says. ? If you learn how to rule one single
man’s soul, you can get the rest of mankind.’ Toohey understands that he is
capable because there exist people who wants his reasurance and the recognition
from others that they have done something right, something significant. Thus
this gives him the power manipulate others into thinking what he wants and
believing what he permits. He plays with his victims like puppets in a show,
because to him, people can be like water, aimlessly following the shift of a
tide.
Similar to an engine over heated, Toohey is too power hungry, in turn his
eminent downfall. He knows quite well that he is incapable of acheiving true
power, so his conscience convulges and lash back at the world that he dispise.
His destructive natural corrupts and he vows vengence. ? I have no private
purpose. I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all sacrefice and
none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop.’ Like a
fugitive who fear being caught, Toohey has to live in the agony of having to
guard himself from the retribution of the people. He knows that power gain
through manipulation of others does not have the integrity too oppose the
yearning of men for freedom. He can only accept defeat.
Ayn Rand is not materialistic, yet she promotes rank differences and wealth.
Her characters are in fact very influential personalities who are often leaders
within a society. Critics of Rand’s work often redicule her philosophy as
unrealistic, liable to things that occurs in fairy tales. However, Ayn Rand
believes differently. In using characters who are over achievers, she
demonstrates the power of her philosophy and the potential of those followers
who strive to attain goals with the best of their abilities. Symbolically, her
characters represent the highest potential that exist within each individual.
Green is a significant color that maintains two polarities. To many, this color
glorify the shear power of money and to others it resembles the pale sickness
that originate from greed. In fact, there is a coralation between these ?
similar opposites’. According to the mechanics of time, one event leads to
another in a chronological order. The old phrase, ?There no smoke without the
fire,’ holds true when associated with money and greed. It may seem trivial
that Ayn Rand promotes such a character within her novel, honoring greatness,
then include in the package, a terrible flaw. Ayn Rand mocks the world for its
imperfection when she introduce the character of Gail Wynand, a rugged newspaper
tycoon who owns every thing within his reach, but lacks the possession of his
own soul. She artistically accept her own imperfection in permiting this foul
experiment to take place.
Wynand’s accomplishments are radical, unchallenge by any other character in the
novel. His power is very concrete and true to life, but only to the extent that
public permits. The readers of his newspaper pretends to fear him while he play
the role of the dictator who deny his dictatorship. The situation unveil a
continuous loop of lies and deciet.
The Tycoon’s reign is the result of power he attain from shear wealth. Such
power comes with a price and he paid for by selling his soul to the puplic. On
the contrary to the purpose of a newspaper as an expression medium, the world of
The Fountainhead expresses zero tolerence for free speech. The paper exist for
the collective and praise everthing but heroic ventures into the new frontiers.
Society encourages the conservative while it condone aspiring changes.
Gail Wynand’s falter is due to carelessness in maintaining his integrity. His
business etiquette involve sacreficing himself and dedicating his whole life’s
work as a service to the people, for the people. He suppresses the outcries of
his conscience, acting only on the behalf of strengthening puplic relations and
obtaining higher profits. The man owns his fortune, but he did not own himself.
The puplic mob lay claim to his existence. His fortune is a mere donation from
the public in return for the service that he provides them.
Wynand suffers internal pain, a pain unbearable due to disappointment and a sour
appointment with reality. He dare challenges the public in a duel, wasting his
efforts in exercising a power that he never own. The sudden impact caught the
victim off guard because he never bother to ask and no one care to answer. In
an effort to reclaim himself, Wynand risked his fortune in a fight against the
public for something which he believes and lost. He is force to forfeit his
newspaper empire, a life long dream of a man who never was. In the end, he
realizes too late that it is easier to move imilar to an engine over heated,
Toohey is too power hungry, in turn his eminent downfall. He knows quite well
that he is incapable of acheiving true power, so his conscience convulges and
lash back at the individual boulders, then to budge entire mountains.
To every situation there exist two extremes, presumably the black and the white.
The identity of the black is usually mark with a stamp of disapproval and render
forbidden deep within the abyss. In the world of The Fountainhead, Foul plays
the dead man’s hand. Ayn Rand is a towering diety who rules with an iron fist
She refuses to tolerate imperfection, despising power gain through self
deprivation and unjust sacrefices. She minics the qualities of a collective
society in Peter Keating, a living mannequin, susceptable only to the movements
which others care to permit. Outspokenly, Ayn Rand defends her opinions of a
collective’s destructive nature by lowering the character of Peter Keating to a
point which is comparable to insects, slugs and parasites.
Keating is not a man, but a mass mob of the collective. When Rand refers to him,
she speaks of society as a whole. When Keating speaks of self, he voices the
thoughts of a million. He kills the meaning of the word ?independence’.
He is very smart and cunning, but all of which he steals or borrows from others.
His apparition of progress is repetition and his view of success is the approval
by some one else.
Keating is the master manipulator, who knowingly victimizes himself. He
represents his own sacreficial goat, offering to a god that has no face, but
many faces. In sacrificing he gains nothing except false prestige and a
delusion of happiness. He follows the desires of his mother and cast aside
dreams of pursuing the proffesion he wants. In doing so, he denies himself the
gratification of doing what he wants to do and in turn sentencing himself to a
life of misery and frustration. The fool refuses to accept that, ‘ Where
there’s sacrefice, there is some one collecting sacreficial offerings,’ and, ?
Where there is service, there is some one being served.’ Ultimately, this ties
into slavery, and worst yet, its self slavery.
Keating flows through a transition of vanity, fame, lies, flatter, and
eventually guilt. He lacks the essential of self respect. A person without
self respect lives in insecurity, holding a bomb that has no control over its
detonation switch. The fame that he dwell on comes with a price and that is the
man’s own dignity. He flushes his human qualities in a trade with the devil and
in the end suffers the consequences. He who decieves others, decieves himself.
Yet even deciet has its limits. A collective is not an entity, it is a monster
that consume without remorse. It destroys what is great and promotes a
relationship where the exchange is mutual exploitation. The society which mould
keating into existence abandons him, satisfied that it has done its toll. Then
as it has aruptly embraces him, his power vanishes. Keating realizes that he
is left alone and slowly his concience seeps in, destroying the empty shell that
remains. This is true example of power without responsibility.
With respect to the Webster’s Dictionary, power is define as, ?authority,’ and a
form of ?control’. Inevitably, authority suggest the notion of power aim at a
target, and often over group of people or individuals without ?control’. In
turn, power is rather destructive, its nature is the encouragement of a society
where individuals strive to conquer one another. Generally, human kind have
never learn cope with this fact, thus locking itself in a cycle of voluntary
decay.
Ayn Rand sums it up in a quote, ” Life can be kept in existence only by a
constant process of self-sustaining actions.” In her vision, she proposes
progress as a measurement of power and a solution to the ?process of self-
sustaining actions’, as an individual who exist not to triumph over other men,
but in the conquest of nature.
Nature is a formidable foe which trembles the heart of the weak, but to great
men, it’s dangers serve as an inspiration. Ayn Rand worships the greatness in
men who dares to break the Cycle and humbly honer them by creating the character
of Howard Roark, a symbolism of strenght and determination.
Roark is `self centered’, `self generated’, `self sufficient’, `self motivated’
and is the ideal man. He represents a powerful locomotive, pulling his only
cargo of an ego and armor plating which protects it. Power streams from this
neural core, it surges in a fluxing shield that illuminates an ora of remarkable
enery, fuel that can only come from an individual.
The antagonist, Ellsworth Toohey once claims that, ” A thinking man can’t be
ruled.” This statement aim at an opponent that is superior to all and including
society. Roark thinks and this gives him the power to create. Creators are mile
stones, set far from the fuilthy reaches of the mass mob who deserves no place
for contest. Creators travels uncharted paths into a unique destiny, pursuing
uncontrollable possibilities. Society lack control over Roark, this hatred
overwhelms them and they set out to destroy him. The Leeches complicates
themself in attacking something that is prone to their touch. Roark is not an
image of a man, but a hologram that is immune to outside interference.
At first, Roark’s character can be on the outrageous side, doom humorous and
terribly intiminating. However, he is the product of a radical thinker and thus
is an incredible concept of thought. Believing in his existence help to
understand the philosophy behind his character and like wise the character
behind the philosophy.
Perhaps at the dawn of creation, all human beings can be considered paupers in
terms of knowledge, wisdom and undoubtedly, the power to make appropriate
decisions. Simply put, life’s a continuous search for a sturdy foundation, upon
which will erect a monumental shrine for those who succeeds, and for mindless
others who fail to choose the right path, it will be their final resting place,
six feet under. Success is eminent for those who search vigorously, but more
importantly for those who knows where to seek the guidance. There are few
however, that surpass the stage of seeking, they go beyond to collect their
wisdom into a teaching, guidance in the form of a philosophy. Ayn Rand is one
among them.
Individualism is the philosophy which exemplify ?self’, promotes greatness and
prolong longevity of the human race. It contains the power lock inside every
individual. Our responsibility as an enity on this planet, is to tap this
incredible source of energy, ustilizing this fuel to propell humanity into the
depth of the future.
This is a lesson readers of Ayn Rand’s philosophy will never forget. We are
supplied with various paths to take in life. The true heroes will know which he
is to take and reamain above all others. Those who fail, will end up in the
melting pot of society, their flame of freedom extinguished.