Selfishness And Selflessness In Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

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The main theme of Rand’s novels is the contradiction between her definition of selfish and selfless versus the popular understanding. She sees being selfish and concerned with oneself as a positive attribute as it means that individual has chosen higher values for himself and being selfless and altruistic as a fault as people tend to be unethical (Flanagan). Howard Roark is a character who is selfish and the protagonist of The Fountainhead. After being arrested for blowing up the Cortlandt housing project, Roark chooses the most hostile jury he can and not to bring witnesses. Instead he defends himself with a philosophical speech as he tells them, “The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain.... …show more content…

No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another” (Rand Fountainhead 679). Not only does the jury find him not guilty, but received this verdict by himself. He and only himself were responsible for defending himself, thus selfishly protecting his own right to live. To a society and jury who saw him as a threat for his selfishness, the individualist can influence them by simply sharing his own values.
Rather than human characters, Rand’s are more like complex abstractions which allows room for glaring ironies (Guerard). Traits in one character make them evil, but the same traits in another: good. The main antagonist of the book is Ellsworth Toohey as he represents collectivism and constantly tries to force Roark into a situation where he is powerless. On the other hand, Henry Cameron serves as his mentor and attempts to guide him to a life unlike his own. Cameron was an architect much like Roark, but he succumbed to the pressure and humiliation of society as they broke him for having ingenious ideas. Toohey hates everyone who is more talented than him while Cameron hates everyone less talented than him, but they both want the same thing: obedience. Cameron the individualist “chose

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