“I don’t care whether you agree with me or not.” This quote was a quick and easy answer given by Howard Roark within the first few pages of the philosophical book The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Although the first chapter of the book may seem minute and inconsequential amongst the wide span of pages that comprise the story, it helps us dive into the mind of Roark and perceive the cold rational that he has for life. The audience is able to see his plight for individuality, for the questioning of the institutions, tradition and of the nature of society itself. Although Roark himself may come off as cold and uncaring at first, we are able to deduct from just the first twelve pages of the book that Roark as achieved something very close to an immoral perfection.
Perfection, a nearly impossible concept that many refuse to believe exists within the natural world. Before giving the premise that Roark has been expelled from the Architectural School of the Stanton Institute of Technology, Rand describes Roark though in an almost mathematical immaculate manner with few imperfections. Roark holds a body of “straight lines and angles, each curve broken into planes” while his face itself was “a law of nature”. Rand continues to depict Roark in almost God like proportions. His chosen career path, one of an architect, is a reflection of God’s work in planning and shaping the world. Roark’s awareness of the earth and its composition of granite, trees and iron and his uses for them further emphasizes that Roark has obtained a higher clarity than what most humans have. The assuredness of what these items will be used for and his deity similar qualities depict how Roark sees the world not as how it could shape him but how he could shape it as its architect, setting him on a pedestal above others.
Roark most exudes this difference in qualities as he walks amongst others. As Roark passes the streets of Stanton many turn to him garnering him much attention. Likewise both Ms. Keating and the Dean take him with a sense of uneasiness as they realize that although Roark may be looking at them directly in the eyes, he also regards them as if they were not there. The line, “He could have walked there naked without concern,” further extends the point that Roark has achieved grace above others to the point where he is no longer concerned about their thoughts and opinions. This creates one of the main points of the novel that individuality has to be created without the influences of society. Roark holds no care for the people he encounters in the first chapter. Ms. Keating’s reaction to how Roark dresses so informally for the Dean represents the conformity that society expects of the individual. Roark’s lack of care for his state of dress though shows how he has surpassed these hegemonic ideals. One cannot be bogged down by the concerns of others, or of society in general which is culminated amongst Roark’s line “I don’t care whether you agree with me or not.”
A breaking from traditions also plays a key role during this first scene that also emphasizes the deterrence from societal conformity. The Dean himself represents society and its ideals, ideals found by analyzing historical architecture and mimicking them in today’s constructions. Roark points this out to the Dean by explaining how architecture has not evolved from his point of view, instead what has happened is that with new materials of a better age, architecture has been found to still copy those that came before them. The columns of structures today mimic those of the marble columns of the past which copy those of wood from the ancient. This enrages both Roark and the author in that society in general has lost generations of individuality by studying these ancient structures such as the Parthenon. Roark states himself that he has learned all that he can from the school that he has just been expelled from implying that he has to find his own style, his own art. By trying to mimic those of the past Roark has realized that he was losing his own potential. By conforming to what society has deemed beautiful one has suddenly limited their own abilities.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand embraces a cold hard logic, one that states that the individual must look past the group in order to achieve greatness. Roark himself logically determines that the institutions of today are teaching him nothing about how to create architecture as much as it is teaching him to mimic it from past architects. Thus he pushes them aside and pretends that they are not there in order to separate himself from the hegemony that society asks for. Through doing this Roark has achieved a God like air that exudes superiority and clarity above others.
No comments:
Post a Comment