The Fountainhead Rhetorical Analysis

Howard Roark’s speech in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead displays the author's personal philosophy of objectivism. Objectivism is an idea that Ayn Rand had developed and promoted in her works of literature. Objectivism advocated for the rights of individual freedoms such as someone being able to do whatever that person desires with their own creations. In this case, Ayn Rand’s character Howard Roark; who had dynamited his own building . Through Rand’s persuading diction, immense detail, and powerful organization, Ayn Rand takes a stand through a fictional character to promote the idea that an individual should be able to live freely without society or the government scrutinizing him.

Howard Roark’s diction strengthens his testament of being his

In the beginning, Roark talks about the humble beginnings of man and the great creators that lived before him. These people gave humanity their creation without the interruption of others, before the orgy of self-sacrifice in the present. This is talked about because these men were allowed to act alone and create what they wanted to create, no input from others needed, unlike Roark’s present that contains cheaters and other parasites. In the middle, Roark talks about how parasites are collectivists who essentially want to bound all men in shackles. The philosophy of Rand’s objectivism and the idea of collectivism contrasts at this point of Roark’s speech; it voices the flaws of Rand’s opposing viewpoints. In the end, Roark’s speech moves to a call to action for “every man of independence left in the world.” Roark’s speech moves away from his own defense but to the defense of every individual who refuses to rely on society. It’s Roark’s and Rand’s main idea of the whole speech, the individual should be unhindered unlike the plot behind Roark’s back. The individual has the rights to their creation and can do whatever they want to do with it, without society’s say in