In a stifling courtroom the audience sits in a manner that denotes an ideological duality beneath the façade of professional attire. Seated on one side of the room is Ayn Rand’s proffering of “moral heroes” and opposite them, as if they are ready for battle, is her vision of the “immoral indolent.” This apparent onslaught is illustrated by Rand in The Fountainhead from an unprecedented perspective. Revisited throughout history as the most universal and essential of themes, it has been warped into something false. The falsehood originates in its categorization. “Moral” and “immoral” have been based in erroneous precepts lacking in reason, and this misconception dirties the hands of the collectivists. Through the use of direct dialogue and intentional characters, Rand creates an allegory for morality in The Fountainhead that connotes the definitions of “good” and “evil” on the foundation of reason, scathingly revealing the intrinsic hypocrisy of the tale about good and evil told by the altruists and the self-sacrificers-the anti-individualists; and removing the stigma of promoting the self. Deeming reason as necessary for morality, Rand dictates that authentic morals arise from a virtue of “selfishness” and individualism, not from the robbery of the individual’s rights (as collectivism dictates). This holiness in reason is embodied in the character Howard Roark, an architect that perseveres with integrity in a world of collectivism, maintaining his individuality and moral autonomy.
The text of The Fountainhead functions as a romanticized, but practical, representation of morality. Within the text, the characters’ actions are general scenarios in which Rand redefines moral as the application of reason and immoral behavior as ostentatiousness and self-sacrifice to the collective. Some characters are dealt with harshly, such as Peter Keating, who is devoid of morality. Others are presented as moral, but corrupted by the collectivist world, like Gail Wynand, often referred to as a man that “could have been.” Comparisons between Roark and various characters are abundant throughout the novel; in Part IV, though, Rand creates the strongest juxtaposition between Roark and others in the culminating courtroom scene, wherein Roark is tried for dynamiting Cortlandt Homes, a housing project he designs. Even the contrast in mere seating arrangement justifies his dynamiting rendezvous as moral. On one side of the courtroom sits Dominique Francon, Mallory, Enright, and Mike the electrician-characters that have been presented as not necessarily moral, but aware of the arcane nature of good and evil-desperately hoping to see the creator triumph over collective evil. Opposite them, there is another camp of thought. Characters like Lois Cook (the hyped author revered by elite pseudo-intellectuals), Jules Fougler (the critic who convinces the masses that “No Skin off Your Ass” is good theatre), Gordon L. Prescott, and Gus Webb-all characters that are presented repeatedly in the novel as hollow shadows of people, i.e., immorality-are present to see the individualism personified in Roark crash, not to punish a man for blasting a housing project. The physical arrangement of these people offers a symbolic statement, delineating one side as moral and one abominable: a philosophical apartheid.
Even more drastic than the distribution of ideologies in the audience is the description of Keating, who initially credits himself with designing Cortlandt. He delivers his testimony “indifferently,” not naïve to the nature of good and evil, but apathetically disillusioned with it. The prosecution intends for Keating’s testimony to function as sensational and direct proof that Roark is deranged. This momentous plan, however, does not register in the minds of a jury and audience impervious to the shell of a person that is Keating. When Keating leaves the courtroom, the audience does not even feel as if a man has walked out. Keating is a ghost-the human spirit crushed. His lack of presence lies not only in publicly crediting himself with the work of Roark multiple times, but living an immoral life of self-sacrifice: reflecting the ideas of others, and engaging in a spiritual cannibalism of the self. Our hero Roark, however, leaves an impression upon the people. The impact of Roark’s presence is not the product of astute panache; his presence is powerful because his existence is a concretization of the creative spirit and a physical scale of morality. Cognizance of the tangible Roark elucidates the true relationship between the righteous and the demoralized. The spectators in the audience suddenly view the commonplace “moral” in monotonous black and white, while Roark, an immorality in abstraction due to altruist perception, stands before them in rebellious and necessary Technicolor. He poses himself before them as a liberating contradiction to convention, as the antithesis to an ignorant presupposition of the “selfishness.”
Contemplating the brilliantly moral Roark before them, the people of the jury, previously unaffected if not disaffected by Keating, now associate their egos with him and question their lives-they are the wretched and non-existent too. Keating and Roark are employed as calibration for the scale of morality. Irony manifests as the jury, whose purpose is to judge Roark, denounce themselves, rather, because of an “enlightened” state that is only made possible by the feared abstractions of true morality made tangible in the body of the man before them. Roark is a concrete example of a new and once feared morality, and a contradiction to everything they superficially believe in; thus, Roark’s actions, including the dynamiting of Cortlandt, are moral as well. Rand’s analogy created by comparison of “moral person is to moral action, whereas immoral person is to immoral action” creates a strong argument, in the context of the novel, for the morality of destroying Cortlandt.
Justification through symbolism, though, is subtle set against the speech Roark delivers as his sole testimony. This speech presents the fundamental rationale behind his actions-altruism is specious in conception and dangerously immoral in execution-and isolates digestible ideas that compositely defend his actions. The individual ego, he explains, is the source of all ingenuity and morality, the fountainhead of society. The true ego, however, is violated in an altruistic society that believes in a false precept of a “collective” ego; this belief in a collective ego is illogical, perverse, and quite simply, wrong. No more can a man, Roark contends, share his physical body can he share his ego, his spirit, and his creation that is a product thereof. In this argument of individualism, Roark creates an argument for ownership in the purest sense over intellectual property. Applied to Roark and Cortlandt, this means that because Roark designs the project, it is solely his and he can do with it what he wishes. He has the idea for Cortlandt, and because a man cannot share his ideas or his creative spirit unless compensated on his own terms, the project is solely his since he never receives payment.
Cortlandt, in its finality after adjustments, is the product of altruism. It is an immoral building and a violation on Roark’s creative ownership. The board in charge of Cortlandt homes changes certain design elements to suit the future inhabitants. Roark agrees with Keating to design the building under the condition that it is erected exactly as he intends it to be, and under no other conditions. Intended construction, for Roark, does not incorporate the needs of the people who are to live there. Consideration of the people who will live there removes the creator from his creation, and incorporates the needs of others, which is an altruistic sentiment, therefore immoral. Erection without manipulation is the payment that Roark sets forth for his design. Though Roark would still own the idea of Cortlandt if it were constructed as he wish, the thievery of Cortlandt is a double-barrel corruption because the implication of the redesigned Cortlandt is that the use (by second-handers) of the building is more important than its form, than the creator’s original vision. The board can never own Cortlandt’s design-its spirit in the metaphysical sense. The concern of the courtroom, though, is the physical, which cannot be owned by the board of Cortlandt homes because Roark never receives the appropriate payment from Keating. Roark is no altruist and does not do free work. He tells the jury that because Cortlandt is his, he has the right to destroy it; and he does on the basis that its construction is corrupt. He has no obligation to the future inhabitants of Cortlandt solely because they are destitute; this does not give them any right to his work.
The idea of “obligation” does appeal to Roark in the form of “punishment,” though. Morality rooted in reason obligates the individual to not be a member of a slave society. If Roark were to be condemned for destroying his own property, then it would signify a society at the acme of enslavement. By being sentenced, Roark is willing to show his loyalty to the spirit of the reason, not as a martyr, but as a sign of homage to the creator’s spirit. Conversely, a verdict of innocence would attest that men like Roark can still survive in a world seemingly suffocating under the false implications of collectivism. The raw bravery that he exhibits in openly accepting possible punishment exerts a final establishment of his morality in character, thought, and most importantly, action.
