The Fountainhead has become an enduring piece of literature, more popular now than when published in 1943. On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence.
--Amazon.com Reviews

Howard Roark
The noble soul par excellence. The man as man should be. The self-sufficient, self-confident, the ends of ends, the reason unto himself, the joy of living personified. Above all- the man who lives for himself, as living for oneself should be understood. And who triumphs completely. A man who is what he should be.

Peter Keating
The exact opposite of Howard Roark, and everything a man should not be. A perfect example of a selfless man who is a ruthless, unprincipled egoist- in the accepted meaning of the word. A tremendous vanity and greed, which lead him to sacrifice all for the sake of a "brilliant career". A mob man at heart, of the mob and for the mob. His triumph is his disaster. Left as an empty, bitter wreck, his "second hand life" takes the form of sacrificing all for the sake of a victory which has no meaning and gives him no satisfaction. Because his means become his end. He shows that a selfless man cannot be ethical. A man who never could be [man as he should be]. And doesn't know it.

A great publisher (Gail Wynand)
A man who rules the mob only as long as he says what the mob wants his to say. What happens when he tries to say what he wants. A man who could have been.

A preacher?
A man who tries to save the world with an outworn ideology. Show that his ideals are actually in working existence and that they precisely are what the world has to be saved from.

An art producer
(Screen) A man who has no opinions and no values, save those of others

The actress
(Vesta Dunning) A women who accepts greatness on other people's eyes, rather than in her own. A woman who could have been.

Dominique Wynand
The woman for a man like Howard Roark. The perfect priestess.

John Eric Snyte
The real ghost-writer-liver. A man who glories in appropriating the achievement of others.

Ellsworth Monkton Toohey
Noted economist, critic and liberal. "Noted" anything and everything. Great "humanitarian" and "man of integrity." Glorifies all forms of collectivism because he knows that only under such forms will he, as the best representative of the mass, attain prominence and distinction, impossible to him on his own merits which do not exist. The idol-crusher par excellence. Born, organic enemy of all things heroic. Has a positive genius for the commonplace. Worst of all the possible rats. A man who never could be- and knows it.

The two moral extremes in this cast are obviously Roark and Toohey. Here is Miss Rand creating the character of Roark, on February 9, 1936. Observe her concern both for the physical detail which will make him real, and for the spirit which will make him Roark.

Howard Roark.
Tall, slender. Somewhat angular- straight angles, hard muscles. Walks swiftly, easily, too easily, slouching a little, a loose kind of ease in motion, as if movement requires no effort whatever, a body to which movement is as natural as immobility, without a definite line to divide them, a light, flowing, lazy ease of motion, an energy so complete that it assumes the ease of laziness. Large, long hands- prominent joints and knuckles and wrist-bones, with hard, prominent veins on the back of the hands; hands that look neither young nor old, but exceedingly strong. His clothes always disheveled, disarranged, loose and suggesting... a certain savage unfitness for clothes. Definitely red, loose, straight hair, always disheveled.
A hard, forbidding face, not in the least attractive according to conventional standards. More liable to be considered homely than handsome. Very prominent cheek-bones. A sharp, a straight nose. A large mouth- long and narrow, with a thin upper lip and rather prominent lower one, which gives him the appearance of an eternal, frozen half-smile, an ironic, hard, uncomfortable smile, mocking and contemptuous. Wrinkles or dimples or slightly prominent muscles, all of that and none definitely, around the corners of his mouth. A rather pale face, without color on the cheeks and with freckles over the bridge of the nose and the cheek-bones. Dark red eyebrows, straight and thin. Dark gray, steady, expressionless eyes- eyes that refuse to show expression, to be exact. Very long, straight, dark red eyelashes- the only soft, gentle toudh of the whole face- a surprising touch in the grim expression. And when he laughs- which happens seldom- his mouth opens wide, with a complete, loose kind abondon. A low, hard, throaty voice- not rasping, but rather blurred in its tone, though distinct in its sound, with the same soft, lazy fluency as his movements, neither one bieng soft or lazy...
He is not even militant about his utter selfishness. No more than he could be defiant about the right to breathe and eat. He has the quiet, complete, irrevocable calm of an iron conviction. No dramatics, no hysteria, no sensitiveness about it- because there are no doubts. A quiet, almost indifferent acceptance of an irrevocable fact.
A quick, sharp mind, courageous and not afraid t be hurt, has long since grasped and understood completely that the world is not what he is and just what exactly what that is. Consequently, he can no longer be hurt. The world has no painful surprises for him, since he has accepted long ago just what he is to expect from the world...
He does not suffer, because he does not believe in suffering. Defeat or disappointment are merely a part of the battle. Nothing can really touch him. He is concerned only with what he does. Not how he feels. How he feels is entirely a matter of his own, which cannot be influenced by anything and anyone on the outside. His feeling is a steady, unruffled flame, deep and hidden, a profound joy of living and of knowing his power, a joy that is not even conscious of being a joy, because it is so steady, natural and unchangeable...
He will be himself at any cost- the only thing he really wants of life. And, deep inside of him, he knows that he has the ability to win the right to be himself. Consequently, his life is clear, simple, satisfying and joyous- even if very hard outwardly.
He is in conflict with the world in every possible way- and at complete peace with himself. And his chief difference from the rest of the world is that he was born without the ability to consider others. As a matter of form and necessity on the way, as one meets fellow travellers- yes. As a matter of basic, primary consideration- no...
Religion - None. Not a speck of it. Born without and "religious brain center." Does not understand or even conceive of the instinct for bowing and submission. His whole capacity for reverence is centered on himself. Needs no mystical "consolation," no other life. Thinks too much of this world to expect or desire any other...
The story is the story of Howard Roark's triumph. It has to show what the man is, what he wants and how he gets it. It has to be a triumphant epic of man's spirit, a hymn glorifying a man's "I." It has to show every conceivable hardship and obstacle on his way- and how he triumphs over them, why he has to triumph.

Elsworth Monkton Toohey.
The non-creative "second-hand" man par excellence- the critic, expressing and molding the voice of public opinion, the average man at large- condensed, representing the average man's qualities plus the peculiar qualities of his kind which him the natural leader of average men. Theme song- a vicious, ingrown vanity coupled with an inane will to power, a lust for superiority that can be expressed only through others, whom, therefore, he has to dominate, a natural inferiority complex subconsciously leading to the bringing down of everything to inferiority...
Went into "intellectualism" in big way. Two reasons: first, a subconscious revenge for his obvious physical inferiority, a means to a power his body could never give him; second, and main- a cunning perception that only mental control over others is true control, that if he can rule them mentally he is indeed their total ruler. His vanity is not the passive one of Peter, who is really not concerned with other people as such, only mirrors for his vanity; Toohey is very much concerned with other people in the sense of an overwhelming desire to dominate them...
[Toohey] has realized ahead of many others the tremendous power of numbers, the power of the masses which, for the first time, in the XX century, are acquiring real significance in all, even in the intellectual, departments of life. In that sense, he is the man of the century, the genius of the modern democracy in its worst meaning. The first cornerstone of his convictions is equality- his greatest passion. This includes the idea that, as two- legged human creatures, all possess certain intrinsic value by the mere fact of having been born in the shape of men, not apes. Any concrete, mental content inside the human shape does not matter. A great brain or a great talent or a magnificent character are of no importance as compared to that intrinsic value all possess as men- whatever that may be. He is never clear on what that may be and rather annoyed when the question is raised...
In as much as beliefs are important to him only as a means to an end, and that is the extent of his belief in beliefs, he is not bothered by his inconsistencies, by the vagueness and logical fallacy of his convictions. They are efficient and effective to secure the ends he is seeking. They work- and that is all they're for...
Communism, the Soviet variety particularly, is not merely an economic theory. It does not demand economic equality and security in order to set each individual free to rise as he chooses. Communism is, above all, a spiritual theory which denies the individual,not merely as an economic power, but in all and every respect. It demands spiritual submission to the mass in every way conceivable, economic, intellectual, artistic; it allows individuals to rise on as servants of the masses, only as mouthpieces for the great average. It places, among single individuals, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey at the top of the human pyramid...
In opposing the existing order of the society, it is not big capitalists and their money that Toohey opposes, he opposes the fading conceptions of individualism still existing in that society, and the privileged few as its material symbols. He says that he is fighting Rockefeller and Morgan; he is fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare...
Toohey studies voraciously. He has a magnificent memory for facts and statistics, he is known as a "walking encyclopedia." This is natural- since he has no creative mind, only a repeating, aping, absorbing "second-hand" one. By the same token- his absorption in studies: he has nothing new to create, but can acquire importance by absorbing the works and achievements of others. He is a sponge, not a fresh spring...
He is a man so completely poisoned spiritually, that his puny physical appearance seems to be a walking testimony to the spiritual pus filling his blood vessels.

...still more to come.

The Fountainhead.

The whole essence of 'The Fountainhead' can be distilled to one sentence: 'Man is an end in himself.'
To get to the above point in a descriptive and indeed convincing manner, click here to go to what I would like to call, Roarks Trial.