Analysis Of The Fountainhead

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Recommended: Essays on ayn rand's the fountainhead

The FountainHead
J.B Bae
4/25/14
Period. 2

“When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return-it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck…”. This is a quote from Dominique Francon who loves a guy yet tries to destroy him because of her love. In the book "The Fountainhead", the main character named Howard Roark is a brilliant architect who is very independent and unique but got rejected by society because of those characteristics. Along the career that he had, he met one woman named Dominique Francon who was the daughter of Guy Francon, and they both fell in love with each other. However, Dominique Francon struggled to destroy Roark for couple reasons not only to get his love but also of his greatness in his architectectures.
"But you see, I have, let's say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards--and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one." This is the quote that decribes the guy named Howard Roark perfectly. He is the man who loves his work and gets joy of his life by his work which is building and designing his architecture. As I mentioned earlier, Roark is an architect who did not seem to be common in that society. He was different than other architects in style and his thinking. In contrast, those differences allowed the society to dislike Roark as an ...

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...ad this book might have a question that they cannot answer which is "Why did Dominique Francon try to destroy Howard Roark when she really loved him?". However, she was tired of the evil society and did not want to live a happy life in that society. That led her to concern about her lover, Howard Roark, that the talent that he had on designing and building architectures might get destroyed by the society who did not appreciate Howard Roark's work. There is an old quote saying "sometimes when you give something up, you find something better." We can see this quote relating to Dominique Francon's situation. Of course she did not want to destroy a guy who she really loved but by destroying him, she could satisfy herself that she was the one who destroyed Howard Roark, not the society. In other words, she wanted to destroy Roark before the society tries to destroy him.

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