| The
Fountainhead Essay Contest |
| for
students of high schools and junior colleges in
India |
| 1999
First Prize Winner: Abhayraj Naik |
|
|
|
Abhayraj
Naik, National Public School,
Bangalore
Topic:
Three quotations from The Fountainhead
a) Roark:
Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value,
What a man is and makes of himself, not what he has or hasn't
for others.
Roark
says this when he is on trial for dynamiting the remodelled
Cortlandt Homes structure and this is the central theme
around which his defense of his actions, his motivation
for doing what he did, in fact his justification of why
he lives as he does live; and why he is what he is, lies.
With this one sentence he bares his soul to everyone…… why
he was expelled from Stanton…… why all his life he refused
a number of steady jobs where he would he paid handsomely
building structures to please his clients; who in turn could
only be pleased if other people liked the building......
why he chose to go to Henry Cameron when he could have gone
to almost anyone else…… why he, with nothing but his work
as his companion was never unhappy whereas all the altruists
with their supposedly burgeoning circle of close friends
never seemed to find true happiness.
Fully
conscious of the full meaning of his words, Howard Roark
had used them as a slap to every man who had ever prostituted
and continued to prostitute himself for the sake of others,
and as a handshake to every man who had ever dared to stand
alone, proud and independent. A slap of contempt; a handshake
of respect and understanding. Roark also conveys that
the worth of a man is decided solely on what he is for himself,
what he would he in a world devoid of other people; the
fact that he is liked by other people, that there are other
people who think his work is good has absolutely no relevance
in deciding his worth. The value of a human life should
be decided solely on the independence, initiative, talent,
and spirit of that single human and the hatred or love,
respect or fear, anger or understanding of another human
life towards the first has absolutely no bearing on the
worth of the first life. The greatest gauge of virtue
of a man is, actually the only gauge of human virtue is
independence, what a man is for himself, his thoughts, his
spirit, his love for his work and his independence in his
life. Roark, in that courtroom, avenges every creator who
ever had to be avenged, not with a conscious effort to do
so but by just being himself and by saying aloud the fundamental
tenets he had lived his life by and this in its eternal
simplicity is what being independent truly means.
b) Dominique:
Roark, I can accept anything, except what seems to be
the easiest for most people: the half way, the almost, the
just about , the in between.
Dominique
Francon says this when she meets Howard Roark on the day
following her marriage to Peter Keating; a statement of
justification, of suffering, of pain and of enormous courage.
Dominique's life before she met Roark had in its entirety
been one almost full of suffering, devoid of any true meaning.
She had lived alone, unsupported yet unbroken in a world
where most men seemed to be affected by a truly vicious
disease - one where they saw and where they envisioned success
but did not want it and made no effort to strive towards
it. She had lived, a colossus of strength, in a world where
decadence was approved of, the vile was glorified, selflessness
was revered, the "individual" was sniggered at and attaining
success by one's own ability was almost a myth. She had
survived, survived a world of cornerstore louts and complacent
managers, of pleading beggars and whining editors and in
their eyes she had seen indifference, they were beyond caring;
in their eyes she had seen the look one sees in a dying
man, ravaged by disease or in a starving animal, whipped,
goaded to work harder. She had seen it and lived by it all
and this statement of hers reflects that in not accepting
their way of living, she had chosen the hardest way for
fighting for her freedom, for her life, and, on her terms.
What
she says explains why she married Peter Keating, why she
modelled for Roark's temple, why she married Gail Wynand,
why it had to he her who drew away the watchman from Cortlandt
Homes when Roark was going to blow it up and why it had
to be a woman of her character and of her strength with
whom Roark would ever fall in love with. In choosing her
way of fighting for her freedom from the world, she had
left herself only two choices; either to destroy the hold
the world had on her, which allowed her to be hurt by it
and made her afraid of it for Roark's sake or get destroyed
in trying. For Dominique Francon, newspaperwoman par excellence,
ultramodern socialite wife of Peter Keating, glamorous treasure
of Gail Wynand and lover of Howard Roark there would be
no half way, no almost, no just about and definitely no
in between.
c) Keating
(to Roark): When I'm with you - its always like a choice.
Between you and the rest of the world. I don't want that
kind of a choice. I don't want to be an outsider. I want
to belong.
Peter
Keating, though he never admits it to himself had always
worshipped Howard Roark. Right from their days together
at Stanton Keating had loved and worshipped Roark in his
mind, yet he consciously strove to destroy him. Even Keating,
being the parasitic secondhander that he was, had a vague
notion that there was an important difference between people
like him and Roark. It was only with Roark that Peter Keating
was truly himself, stripped of his pretensions and with
no facade of people to hide behind, as other people had
no significance in Howard Roark's presence. Through the
shell of his sugar coated superficial world Peter Keating
was dimly aware that he and Roark were not from the same
mould; they were not and that they would never be and yet
this statement of his reflects how much he wanted to belong.
When
Keating was with Roark he was painfully aware of his existence,
of himself, of his nature, of the common thread of guilt
which bound him to his fellow-man and the kind of world
of which he was a symbol. He knew that his kind of world
and Roark could not possibly co-exist and thus whenever
he was in Roark's presence he felt he had to choose between
the world and Roark or rather between himself and Roark.
With every fibre of his being Peter Keating knew that a
"Peter Keating" and a "Howard Roark" could not, should not
he allowed to exist on the same earth. Throughout
the novel Keating tries to destroy Howard Roark, aware that
Roark represents man as he could be and should be, and also
fully aware that the closest he could come to belonging
and identifying with people like Roark was directly intertwined
with the destruction of himself and all he represented.
Copyright
1999. Liberty Institute, Delhi, India
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