First Place

Sara Douglas, East Hampton High School, NY

Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead is a story of the struggle between men of greatness and men of mediocrity. An individualist to the core, Rand defines a man of greatness as one who is independent and uncompromising, one who derives his self-respect from his accomplishments and integrity rather than the approval of others. Rand defines a man of mediocrity, by contrast, as one who doesn’t care about actually being competent and upright so long as he appears that way to others. Rand refers to these mediocre men as second-handers, because they get their self-respect second-hand, from the approval of those around them. In The Fountainhead, a man of greatness, Howard Roark, must struggle against these men of mediocrity, who either, like Peter Keating, pretend to greatness, or, like Ellsworth Toohey, seek to destroy greatness itself. As she chronicles the lives of these men, Rand refutes the idea that life sometimes requires a man to compromise, to soften his convictions when they are no longer accepted or convenient. By the end of the novel, it is the independent man of greatness that has emerged victorious and the compromising second-handers that lie fallen around him.

Still, Rand doesn’t pretend that the success of the independent man comes quickly or easily. When the book begins, Peter Keating has just graduated with honors from the Stanton Institute of Technology, while Howard Roark has just been expelled from that same institute as a result of his refusal to compromise his artistic integrity by designing buildings that look like Tudor chapels or French opera houses. In the months that follow, Keating claws his way to the top of the prestigious Francon & Heyer firm by flattering his boss and sabotaging the reputation of a well-loved draftsman, while Roark struggles to make ends meet working at the failing firm of his idol Henry Cameron, an uncompromising modernistic genius who has fallen from public favor during architecture’s neoclassical phase. Keating, however, whose position within his firm is based on manipulation, not original accomplishment, is soon confronted with his own incompetence when he tries to design a building for the Cosmo-Slotnick competition. After several frustrating attempts, Keating realizes his own ineptitude, and, abandoning any attempts to design something unified and honest, decides to instead focus on pleasing the jury by straddling styles and designing a compromise building: a skyscraper, but one in keeping with the style of jury-member Ralston Holcombe’s favorite Italian palaces. As with all compromises in The Fountainhead, the results are hideous. And just as Keating compromises his buildings, Keating also compromises himself, hiding a mediocre structure behind a flashy facade. As a result of these compromises, Keating becomes depressed and turns to drinking as a means of coping with the sense of dissatisfaction brought about by making choices that he thinks will please others over choices that would bring him fulfillment.

Meanwhile, Howard Roark, although his rent is overdue and his telephone on the verge of being disconnected, journeys on in his quest for artistic integrity and continues to turn down clients who won’t give him total control over the projects they are commissioning. It takes a while for the right kind of people, the individualists who really appreciate independence and genius, to catch onto Roark’s work and start commissioning him for buildings of their own, but until they do, Roark contents himself blasting rock in a quarry, where at least he is in control of his own work. Even the ordeals of projects like The Stoddard Temple and Monadnock Valley leave him unscathed, because Roark cares only about seeing his work erected, not about what the world may think of or do with his work once it’s complete.

With all of these contrasts drawn between Roark and Keating, it would be easy to assume that the struggle between greatness and mediocrity is played out between these two characters as well. Keating, however, poses no real threat to Roark: he is too selfless, too weak, too wrapped up in the pursuit of public approval. Instead, the real danger lies in the man who harnesses the selflessness of men like Keating as a means of gaining power. This man, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, is, like Keating, incapable of personal greatness. But while Keating tries to compensate for his mediocrity by convincing others that he has achieved greatness, Toohey, knowing that “great men can’t be ruled,” tries to compensate by destroying man’s very concept of greatness. Through his various councils and his column, “One Small Voice,” Toohey uses his influence to elevate the Lois Cooks and the Lancelot Clokeys and the Peter Keatings—the very worst of every profession. Toohey divulges his scheme when he makes his power-speech to Keating, explaining that if you “set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept . . . you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small.” Because creators like Roark are concerned with their work itself rather than what the Tooheys of the world think of it, Toohey recognizes these men as a threat to his power and seeks to squelch their independence by imposing uniform mediocrity.

Of course, at some point, most readers will wonder if it wouldn’t be better to find a nice middle ground between Toohey and Roark, maybe not endeavor to rule the world with mediocrity, but maybe not go hungry waiting for the commissions to come either. So in case the eventual triumph of the great man is not enough to convince the reader otherwise, Rand creates the character of Gail Wynand to illustrate the dangers of compromise, a character, who, in early outlines, Rand describes as “a man who could have been.” The owner of a chain of trashy tabloids, Wynand panders to “the lowest common denominator,” publishing papers that contain such schlock as poems “proclaiming that to wash dishes [is] nobler than to write a symphony” and articles “proving that a woman who [has] borne a child [is] automatically a saint.” As he sees it, controlling the press is just a means of controlling the masses. This, of course, makes Wynand just like any other second-hander—his self-respect dependent on his control of a media empire, that, as Wynand learns too late, needs the support of popular opinion in order to survive. Wynand holds an end of the leash around the neck of the public beast, but, as he soon learns, “a leash is only a rope with a noose at both ends.” Having finally found the conviction and courage to propagate his individual opinion rather than regurgitate the collective one, Wynand tries to build up support for Roark in the days leading up to the Cortlandt trial only to discover that he “rules the mob only as long as he says what the mob wants him to say.” As a result of The Banner’s support for Roark, businesses pull their ads, circulation plummets, and Wynand’s workers strike. At first Wynand holds out, but the union, led by none other than Ellsworth Toohey, eventually persuades him to meet their demand that The Banner reverse its position on the Cortlandt case. As soon as he agrees, the picketing stops, the workers come back and circulation returns to normal. Gail Wynand, however, is left irreparably broken, Rand’s reminder of the rewards reaped by a compromising man.

In the last chapter, Rand describes Dominique riding the hoist up to join Roark at the top of the Wynand Building. The city grows small below her as she passes “the pinnacles of bank buildings . . . the crowns of courthouses . . . the spires of churches.” These are the institutions of conformity and Roark has risen above them all. He has risen above money, refusing the clients who demanded compromise as he waited for those that would let him carry out his work with integrity. He has risen above the law, relying not on a lawyer, but on his own powers of reason and logic to defend his ideals and prove his innocence in the Cortlandt case. He has risen above the church, holding his own against the proponents of altruism, sacrifice and selflessness. When Dominique looks up again, there is only the ocean, the sky, and the figure of Howard Roark, towering over the city. Having finally emerged victorious, a man of greatness uncompromised by the forces of mediocrity, Howard Roark stands alone, not only “against the world,” but above it.