Struggle Between Excellence and Mediocrity in The Fountainhead Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is a story of the struggle between great men and mediocre men. An individualist to the core, Rand defines a man of greatness as someone who is independent and uncompromising, someone who derives self-respect from his accomplishments and integrity rather than from the approval of others. Rand defines a mediocre man, by contrast, as someone who is not interested in actually being competent and upright as long as he appears so to others. Rand refers to these mediocre men as second-hand people, because they gain self-respect second-hand, from the approval of those around them. In The Fountainhead, a man of greatness, Howard Roark, must struggle against these men of mediocrity who, like Peter Keating, pretend to be great or, like Ellsworth Toohey, seek to destroy greatness itself. As she chronicles the lives of these men, Rand refutes the idea that life sometimes requires a man to compromise, to soften his beliefs when they are no longer accepted or convenient. At the end of the novel, it is the independent man of greatness who emerges victorious and the compromising second-hand characters who lie fallen around him. However, Rand does not pretend that the independent man's success comes quickly or easily. As the book begins, Peter Keating has just graduated with honors from the Stanton Institute of Technology, while Howard Roark has just been expelled from the same institute due to his refusal to compromise his artistic integrity by designing buildings that resemble Tudor chapels or theaters. of French operas. In the months that follow, Keating works his way to the top of the prestigious Francon... middle of paper... yn Rand. By Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995. Branden, Barbara. The Passion of Ayn Rand: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, 1986aBranden, Nathaniel. My Years with Ayn Rand. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.Garmong, Dina. Personal interview. 2 November 1999.Maslow, AH (1968) Toward a psychology of being. New York: Van Nostrand. Peikoff, Leonard. The philosophy of objectivism, a brief summary. Stein and Day, 1982. Rogers, C.R. (1980) A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Rogers, C.R. (1961) Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Rand, Ayn. The Source. New York: Plume, 1994. The Ayn Rand Institute. "A Brief Biography of Ayn Rand" [Online] available at www.aynrand.org/aynrand/biography.html, 1995Walker, Jeff. The cult of Ayn Rand. Carus publishing house, 1999

Topic > Struggle Between Excellence and Mediocrity in The Fountainhead Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is a story of the struggle between great men and mediocre men. An individualist to the core, Rand defines a man of greatness as someone who is independent and uncompromising, someone who derives self-respect from his accomplishments and integrity rather than from the approval of others. Rand defines a mediocre man, by contrast, as someone who is not interested in actually being competent and upright as long as he appears so to others. Rand refers to these mediocre men as second-hand people, because they gain self-respect second-hand, from the approval of those around them. In The Fountainhead, a man of greatness, Howard Roark, must struggle against these men of mediocrity who, like Peter Keating, pretend to be great or, like Ellsworth Toohey, seek to destroy greatness itself. As she chronicles the lives of these men, Rand refutes the idea that life sometimes requires a man to compromise, to soften his beliefs when they are no longer accepted or convenient. At the end of the novel, it is the independent man of greatness who emerges victorious and the compromising second-hand characters who lie fallen around him. However, Rand does not pretend that the independent man's success comes quickly or easily. As the book begins, Peter Keating has just graduated with honors from the Stanton Institute of Technology, while Howard Roark has just been expelled from the same institute due to his refusal to compromise his artistic integrity by designing buildings that resemble Tudor chapels or theaters. of French operas. In the months that follow, Keating works his way to the top of the prestigious Francon... middle of paper... yn Rand. By Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995. Branden, Barbara. The Passion of Ayn Rand: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, 1986aBranden, Nathaniel. My Years with Ayn Rand. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.Garmong, Dina. Personal interview. 2 November 1999.Maslow, AH (1968) Toward a psychology of being. New York: Van Nostrand. Peikoff, Leonard. The philosophy of objectivism, a brief summary. Stein and Day, 1982. Rogers, C.R. (1980) A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Rogers, C.R. (1961) Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Rand, Ayn. The Source. New York: Plume, 1994. The Ayn Rand Institute. "A Brief Biography of Ayn Rand" [Online] available at www.aynrand.org/aynrand/biography.html, 1995Walker, Jeff. The cult of Ayn Rand. Carus publishing house, 1999