A Captivating novel and the characters!

The book which is very much closer to my heart!

The Fountainhead- Ayn rand

This book by the Russian –American novelist Ayn Rand has influenced thousands of people around the globe to search for the hero-antihero in themselves. This is a personal favourite of mine as the characters are very close to my heart. I have seen and experienced all these characters in my life and am sure once you get through the initial pages of this fantastic novel it will absorb you into it. Let me introduce the characters to you: Howard Roark, Peter Keating, Dominique Francon, Gail Wynand and Toohey.

Roark goes through a journey to reach his goals, he is different from the traditional hero because he fights mentally instead of physically. He learns to keep his ego strong, explain to society his values, and influence others to follow his antiheroic model.

One more aspect in this novel is the pleasure Roark gets from being himself and his commitment to live. Each person has a different identity, reason to live, and idea of what being human is, but only the individual is able to desire to be set apart. Here, Roark shows us the reason to live in this world and being oneself.

What attracted me more to this novel is the relationship shared by Roark and Dominique, and especially how Dominique is transformed towards the end of the novel. Love is a virtue that only selfish people with strong egos can have because they are able to hold on to values. Dominique and Roark are naturally drawn to each other because they share the same value of integrity. The passion that Roark and Dominique share is not lust but a shared value. Roark holds on to his own values, and when he finds a similar person who shares those values he falls in love.

Dominique is not as strong as Roark and cannot admit that she wants the life Roark lives when she first meets him. However, from their first encounter they are attracted to each other in a way that they have never felt. She goes on a journey to acquire the courage to accept her talents. Dominique is born with a fighting spirit that sets her apart from the rest of society, but she is afraid of her spirit and reason and tries to deny it. Dominique fears that by loving and having passionate ideals she will be vulnerable to the world, which will ruin her. Dominique will not allow herself to be a slave to mediocrity, so she withdraws from the world to uphold her loyalty to an ideal she doubts is real. Dominique’s family and co-workers think that “it’s abnormal to feel so strongly about anything” because they do not have passion in their own lives . However, Dominique says, “That’s the only way I can feel or not at all”. Dominique is attracted to Roark because they both share the same values, but
Dominique is afraid verbally to admit her attraction to him. Instead of using her
reason to produce truth with Roark she plays games to force him to make the first
move towards a romantic relationship with her. They share a love- hate relationship which is so captivating. She says, “ I hate you for what you are, for wanting you, for having to want you”. I admire the way she waited for the right person to walk into her life when it was least expected, a man with integrity, the only one who can ever match her integrity.

Dominique’s fear is transforming into strength as she begins to see that it is better to be persecuted and be productive than not to live at all. Dominique is able to find her identity but does not know how to make her way back into the world as her true self. Dominique’s strength is greater than others because she has come to terms with her ego and it fuels her.

Once Dominique rejects her fear and accepts her reason and ability to produce creatively, even though the masses do not accept her, she is able to have pleasure being an antihero. The real hero of this novel is Dominique who establishes her strength to be stronger with the help of love of her life, Howard Roark.