Individualism in The Fountainhead
Individualism, the doctrine of free thought and action of the individual, forms the basis of Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. The major theme of her fiction is the primacy of the individual, the unique and precious individual life. That which sustains and enriches life is good, that which negates and impoverishes the individual's pursuit of happiness is evil.
The Fountainhead is Rand's fullest explication of the primacy of the individual. As she worked out her interpretation of the inalienable rights: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and what these entailed, she saw three areas of conflict where these rights were held in balance.
The Three Antipodes:
Individualism versus Collectivism
Egoism versus Altruism
Reason versus Mysticism
All of these areas are interconnected. Collectivism, altruism and mysticism all work against individual freedom, a healthy ego, and rationality.
The Fountainhead is the story of a highly individualistic architect, Howard Roark, and his fight for integrity and individualism against the altruistic parasites and also against the non-heroes who do not believe the fight can be won - the fight of the individual against the non-entity called collectivism.
Non-entity because, any 'collective' or group is only a number of individuals. But here, being an individual is to be selfless, voiceless, righteous, slave of any heed, claim or demand asserted by others. Under collectivism, it is imperative to repress one's critical faculty and hold it as one's guilt. Doubt, not confidence, is man's moral-state; self-distrust, not self-reliance, is a virtue; fear, not self-confidence is the mark of perfection; guilt, not p...
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Works Cited and Consulted
Berliner, Michael S., ed. Letters of Ayn Rand. By Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995.
Branden, Barbara. The Passion of Ayn Rand: A biography. New York: Doubleday, 1986a
Branden, Nathaniel. My Years with Ayn Rand. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.
Garmong, Dina. Personal interview. 2 Nov. 1999.
Peikoff, Leonard. The Philosophy of Objectivism, A Brief Summary. Stein and Day, 1982.
Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. New York: Plume, 1994.
The Ayn Rand Institute. "A Brief Biography of Ayn Rand" [Online] available www.aynrand.org/aynrand/biography.html, 1995
Walker, Jeff. The Ayn Rand Cult. Carus Publishing Company, 1999
You may wish to begin your paper with the following quote:
"The theme of The Fountainhead is individualism versus collectivism - not in politics but in man's soul." Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand’s Anthem is a politically satirical novel is set in a future society that is so highly collectivized that the word “I” has been banned. The world is governed by various councils who believe that man’s sole reason for existence is to enforce the Great Truth “that all men are one and that there is no will save the will of all men together” (Rand, 20). Any indication of an individual’s independent spirit is swiftly and brutally put down, with the transgressors being punished with severe prison sentences or even death.
You and I do not exist; government deems it so. We are one, a single body functioning for the collective good of society. Ayn Rand’s Anthem speaks to this collectivist doctrine while highlighting the implicit contradictions that impede its successful implementation. Collectivism is any philosophic, political, religious, economic, or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human. Collectivism is a basic cultural element that exists as the reverse of individualism in human nature (in the same way high context culture exists as the reverse of
Berliner, Michael S., ed. Letters of Ayn Rand. By Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995.
Anthem by Ayn Rand is a soul-shifting and mind-blowing novella that explores the dangers of a collective, dystopian society. As a man named Equality 7-2521 stumbles through life, he realizes that he has a burning desire to learn and explore, traits discouraged by the society he lives in. In the City, there are many rules, and all of them shadow the idea that “we are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE. One, indivisible, and forever.” (3) Equality 7-2521, with his passion for learning and science, slowly breaks away from this iron rule set by society, and in doing so, learns of the importance of individualism and freedom. In Anthem, Rand’s use of literary devices such as symbolism, characterization, and imagery help develop and present the tone of the importance of individuality and the dangers of a collective society.
The word collectivism often makes people cringe. Overall, there is a general fear of not being able to make personal decisions in America. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, collectivism can be defined as; emphasis on collective rather than individual action or identity (“Collectivism”). In Anthem, Ayn Rand describes an extreme collectivist society.
The Fountainhead provided and continues to provide a powerful inspiration to the individualist movement in America, and throughout the world. More than any other single work, The Fountainhead revived popular enthusiasm for a way of thinking, and a way of life, that in 1943 was regarded by virtually every sector of intellectual opinion as outmoded. Ayn Rand's courageous challenge to accepted ideas was rendered still more courageous by her willingness to state her individualist premises in the clearest terms and to defend the most radical implications that could be drawn from them.
The theme of The Fountainhead can be summarized in the famous line by the author-"man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress". The novel exalts egotism, which is generally looked upon in our world with great dislike. The protagonist, Howard Roark, is a man used by the author to exemplify this philosophy. He is a man of outstanding genius whose only fault seems to be that the world is not ready for him. This man's genius remains unrecognized by the society, he is shunned and ridiculed, but no number of attempts to break him, to force him to confine his work within the parameters laid by the society succeed. The inborn talent in this man and the fountainhead of inspiration in his soul cannot be restrained by any force on earth.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Ayn Rand's classic story of one man's desire to become an individual in a nameless society presents a compelling refutation of collectivism in all forms. The hero, labeled "Equality 7-2521" by the State, chooses to challenge conventional authority as he learns the joys of experimentation and discovery, the ecstasy of human love, the challenge and fairness of liberty, and the happiness of self-interest. Equality 7-2521 writes three unique phrases in his journal: 1. "My happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to an end. It is the end.", 2. "We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it.", 3. "The word 'We' . . . must never be placed first within man's soul.". These phrases will be discussed individually in the remainder of this essay.
In the novel, Anthem, written by Ayn Rand takes place when mankind has entered another dark age. A man named Equality 7-2521 lives in a society where he struggles to live equal within the brotherhood. In the world he lives in people are told they exist only for the sake of serving society, and have no other purpose. Therefore, each individual is assigned a vocation as a permanent life career which determines who they socialize and live with. However, Equality being very different from his brothers, believes in individualism and rejects the collectivism society around him. The concept of individualism vs collectivism is portrayed in the story because individuality is unknown to the people where no one is unique or excellent in any way. The people
The Importance of Freedom Exposed in Anthem & nbsp; In the novel Anthem, Ayn Rand writes about the future of the dark ages. Anthem takes place in a technologically backwards totalitarian society, where mankind is born in the home of the infants and dies in the home of the useless. Just imagine, being born into a life of slavery, having no freedom, no way of self expression, no ego. The city represents slavery. When in the city, Equality was guilty of many transgressions.
In a society, at what point does uniting to benefit the greater good suppress one’s right to possess individuality? The social and political construct of utmost unity is called collectivism, or the practice of emphasizing a whole picture rather than each individual component. The common theme of collectivism versus individualism is prevalent within the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand, wherein the individual motivations of the members of society are suppressed without their knowledge. While contributing to the greater good may have its appeal, one must learn that for this to be possible, individual sacrifices are necessary. The ultimately collectivist society depicted in Anthem is justified by its rulers through ideas of
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, was created on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh in April 1960. SNCC was created after a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been denied service. This sparked a wave of other sit-ins in college towns across the South. SNCC coordinated these sit-ins across the nation, supported their leaders, and publicized their activities. SNCC sought to affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of their purpose. In the violently changing political climate of the 60’s, SNCC struggled to define its purpose as it fought white oppression. Out of SNCC came some of today's black leaders, such as former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Congressman John Lewis and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. Together with hundreds of other students, they left a lasting impact on American history.
Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to become individuals and stand out as unique beings. During the foundation of the colonies, individuals were focused on preserving their religious beliefs. As slavery became more predominant, the Civil War era fought to give black people their identity back. In the 1800s and 1900s, the individual initiative shifted from giving a group of people identity to individuals fighting for their own personal beliefs. In today’s society, individualism has been diminished by the collapse of the economy, forcing people to live with their parents for longer periods of time. As the economy continues to grow again individualism is making strides in a positive direction.
... Greek Titan as “the giant who holds the world on his shoulder” (http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/432.Ayn_Rand). That being the case, she captures the how the country’s most powerful industrialists disappear and without them, the key industries disappear as well (http://www.aynrand.org/novels/atlas-shrugged). She also tells others that the mystery novel is “not about the murder of man’s body, but about the murder—and rebirth—of man’s spirit (http://www.aynrand.org/novels/atlas-shrugged). Fountainhead provides an eagerness for individual ideas (http://www.aynrand.org/novels/the-fountainhead). It teaches the importance of new experiences and how to pursue typical dreams and occupations (http://www.aynrand.org/novels/the-fountainhead). In each novel, Rand demonstrates the power of individualists’ ideas in America and all over the world and how they can shape us.