'howard roark laughed. he stood naked at the edge of a cliff.'
with these words, ayn rand unleashed 'the fountainhead' in 1943. howard roark is the protagonist of 'the fountainhead'; he is a fiercely independent, brilliant young architect of the modern school, whose bold and innovative designs are rejected by an orthodox society' yet he belives in the merit of his revolutionary designs and has the courage to stand for them in the face of an antagonistic society. the theme of the novel is 'individualism v/s collectivism' - the conflict between the individual who thinks for himself and the collectivism of those who allow others or external factors to dominate their decisions and life.
ideal man: roark is not the product of his upbringing, his economic stature, his family, his religious training or his social background, instead, he is a product of the choices he had made. he is an example of free will - the theory that an individual has the power, by the virtue of the choices he makes, to control the out come of his life. a man's thinking and values are not controlled by god or the fates or society or any external factor - but solely by his own choice.
integrity: it is the 'practice what you preach' virtue - it is the principle that says - you must put into practical action the ideas that you hold. but then, first, you must hold ideas. integrity requires a man to be a thinker. he is not a hypocrite to think something and practice something else. the only thing sacred in the world is the mind of a thinking man.
positive selfishness: roark is true to his values, his convictions, to his thinking, to his mind, to his self. despite being down to his last penny, he gives up a lucrative, publicity-genertaing commission in order to stand by the integrity of his design - and thats what he calls 'selfish'. to be true to one's self , one must first have a self. he must think independently he must judge, he must form values and he must act in pursuit of those values. he must never sacrifice them.
practical morality: roark proves that, in order to succeed,one does not need to betray his principles and play along-with the game. he is committed to his designs. he prefers to work under the scorching sun in a granite quarry rather than compromise with the smallest details of his designs. he has faith in himself and his designs. towards the end of the nearly 700 page novel, he achieves a significant commercial success. it proves that he is practical because he is moral and not vice-versa and that these two qualities can exist in a casual relationship.
free thinker: the essence of 'howard roark' is an unswerving devotion to his own thinking and judgement. animals employ characteristics as speed of foot, size, stength, claws and fangs, wings in order to survive whereas man cannot rely on these physical attributes. he must be a thinker to grow food, build houses, manufacture clothes and perform other creative actions necessary to prosper on earth. for this, each man must accept responsibility for his own thinking and his own survival. he must stand by his principles and values rather than bend to the opinions of others. such willingness to live by one's own thinking is true independence and integrity - this is virtue. moral virtue is a requirement of practical success, not a hindrance to it. although all are blessed with the power of thought, many of them chose not to use their's and instead look for an authority figure - 'conformists' who refuse the responsibility of thought and self-directed motivation taking the path of least resistance in life.
'the fountainhead' was initially rejected by twelve publishers who were committed to traditional plots and forms of story-telling. some thought it was too intelluctual, some thought there was no market for such a book while others rejected it because it glorified individualism and repudiated the collectivist ideas so popular among the then intelluctuals. ayn rand refused to comply or dilute her theme. when a reader at bobbs-merrill loved the theme and fought for its publication, the book seemed to live the theme it propogated. its theme of glorifying the independent mind not only captures the essence of the human spirit but, more fundamentally, expresses the deep human yearning for freedom. 'the fountainhead' is a theme and a novel that will live forever.
a standing ovation to the free-thinking spirits of issac newton, thomas alva edison, machiavelli, michaelangelo, leonardo da vinci, albert einstein, picasso and many other original thinkers who thought freely, developed their ideas and struggled against a conservative society.
