Wynand’s awakening comes at just the right time. Keating
feels too weary to act on his repentance, but Wynand throws himself
into the fight against society with vigor. Since the emergence of
the Banner, Wynand has believed that he controls
the world, and when he finds that the world actually controls him,
he spares no effort to fight back. Wynand succeeds where Keating
fails because Wynand was secretly ready for an awakening, whereas
Keating’s realizations take him completely by surprise. Keating
has not marshaled the tools or desire to adapt to Roark’s way of
living.
Interestingly, Rand never provides a personal history
of her protagonist, Howard Roark. Rand details extensive personal
histories for Keating, Toohey, and Wynand in the sections named
after them but never explains where or how Roark grew up, even though
the fourth book of the novel is named after him. We know only that
he comes from a poor family, though we know nothing about his parents
or upbringing. Roark’s mysterious past makes his story applicable
to everyone, as if Rand wants to suggest that background has nothing
to do with genius or principle. It also makes Roark the perfect
man. He has no history because he does not change. He is born a
creator. His lack of a family makes him even more independent and
free from the influence of others. Anything that is important in his
past, present, or future resides in his buildings.
This last section does, however, expand our view of Roark
in two important ways: we get to look inside both his heart and
his head. Rand does not want Roark to be a completely isolated human,
and thus, in this section, we see him love Dominique and Wynand. Roark
also makes two key declarations about his beliefs in life—the first
on Wynand’s yacht, in Chapter 11, and the
second during the Cortlandt trial, in Chapter 18—that
underscore The Fountainhead’s message of independence
and egoism.
