Toohey And Ayn Rand Comparison

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Ayn Rand produces a novel that indiscreetly portrays the laws and personalities of an imperfectly
perfect society through her characters who each possess a different facet of the society in
which she presents. Her protagonist, a man by the name of Howard Roark who in the beginning
of the novel, is an unsuccessful architect who refuses to objectify his creativity to conform to the
means of a society that continuously rejects his uniqueness because it is viewed by many as
“untraditional”. No matter how many times the world rejects his ideas, he still remains true to
himself and what he believes in which is the whole meaning behind his character which
ultimately is meant to represent the ideal man. Roark never conforms to society, and he doesn’t
change …show more content…

Ellsworth Toohey and Gail Wynand are the exact opposites of Howard Roark but are very similar
to each other in their need to obtain power over the people around them in the sense that they
are able to manipulate the minds of those who appear inferior to them and by ruthlessly finding
ways to alter reality to benefit them. Both Toohey and Wynand sought out to exploit Roark.
Ellsworth for starters, vowed to himself that he would do anything in his power to corrupt the
minds of those around him. Rand discreetly creates Toohey to represent the side of mankind
that is all about power, corruption and manipulation by giving him characteristics that paint him to
be the antagonist; an anti-social, malevolent being who seeks to control the system of normality
in his society which Roark fails to conform to deeming him as a social reject.

Toohey is Roark’s polar opposite for he believed in a world that possessed no originality, where
"[...] the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the brain
of his neighbor who'll have no thought of his own [...]"​ which was exactly what Roark wanted

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