Summary: Chapter 11
[Y]ou’ve gone beyond the probable and
made us see the possible, but possible only through you. Because
your figures are more devoid of contempt of humanity than any work
I’ve ever seen.
See Important Quotations Explained
Peter Keating is unhappy with the completed Cosmo-Slotnick
building, but Toohey tells Keating to give up his ego if he wants
to be great. Roark goes to find Stephen Mallory, the sculptor who
tried to kill Toohey. Mallory is shocked by Roark’s interest in
his work and cries with relief at the knowledge that uncompromising
men like Roark exist. The following morning, Mallory visits Roark
and looks at the sketches for the Stoddard temple. Mallory agrees
to sculpt a statue of the human spirit for the temple. Roark suggests Dominique
for a model.
For the next few months, Roark works with brilliant intensity. He
designs a horizontal temple, scaled to human height. He wants it to
bring the sky down to man and allow visitors to find strength.
Summary: Chapter 12
In May, the corporation backing the Aquitania Hotel falls
apart and construction is suspended. Kent Lansing promises Roark
that one day he will finish the Aquitania. Stoddard abruptly cancels
the imminent opening of the Stoddard Temple. The next day, Toohey writes
a vicious criticism of the temple and Stoddard files suit against
Roark for breach of contract and malpractice. Every newspaper in
the city supports Stoddard. Toohey explains to Dominique that now
people will remember Roark for botching a building. At the trial,
many prominent architects in New York testify against Roark. Dominique
testifies on Stoddard’s behalf, but actually defends Roark. She
says the Stoddard Temple should be leveled because the world does
not deserve it. Roark’s only defense is to submit ten photographs
of the Stoddard Temple.
Summary: Chapter 13
Stoddard wins the suit. For her next column, Dominique
submits her trial testimony, over Alvah Scarret’s objections. Dominique threatens
to quit if the article is not printed, and the paper’s owner, Gail
Wynand, orders Scarret to fire Dominique. Meanwhile, Katie goes
to Toohey for advice. She is utterly unhappy in her job as a social
worker and is beginning to hate the people she is supposed to help.
Toohey tells Katie to relinquish her ego. Katie meekly agrees. Keating
bitterly regrets his testimony against Roark at the Stoddard trial.
He tells Katie he wants to marry her right away and that they will
elope the next day. After he leaves, Katie shouts at Toohey that she
is not afraid of him anymore.
Summary: Chapter 14
The same evening, Dominique asks Keating to marry her
and he accepts. They drive to Connecticut and get married. That
night, Dominique goes to Roark. After they make love, Dominique
tells Roark for the first time that she loves him. She then tells
him that she married Keating. Roark accepts the news quietly. Dominique
tells Roark that she will punish herself by marrying Keating because
she refuses to be happy in a world that does not appreciate Roark. Roark
tells her that he loves her and will not stop her. He wants her whole
and will wait for her to grow.
Summary: Chapter 15
The next morning, Dominique moves into Keating’s apartment. Keating’s
marriage is a sham, but he takes pleasure in the envy of other men.
The Stoddard Temple is redesigned by a group of architects and converted
into the Stoddard Home for Subnormal Children. After completing
the Cord skyscraper, Roark cannot find any work. The Wall Street
Crash of 1929 has
nearly ruined the building trades, and no one wants to take a chance
on a scandalous architect. One night Roark goes to see the altered
temple. Toohey emerges, taunts Roark, and asks Roark what he thinks
of him. Roark says he doesn’t think of Toohey at all.
Analysis : Chapters 11–15
The media is the most powerful and despicable public institution
in The Fountainhead. Although Rand published her
novel before television became ubiquitous, newspapers and magazines
are omnipresent in the novel and reach everybody. Toohey exploits
and manipulates the media to its full extent. His mediocrity prevents him
from expressing himself through his own art or architecture, but
he reaches the public and hurts Roark with his column in the Banner.
Because the media shapes opinions and knowledge, Toohey at first
hurts Roark simply by failing to write about him and thus keeping
him from the public eye. But Toohey must switch strategies after
Roark becomes known, and he begins using his newspaper column to
launch an attack on Roark’s reputation.
The extent of Toohey’s maliciousness becomes increasingly apparent
in these chapters, as he manipulates Stoddard into hiring Roark,
letting him begin the building, and then firing and suing him. Characters
react to Toohey’s repulsiveness in different ways. Dominique thinks
the horrible world deserves Toohey and his collectivist philosophy,
and so she does not try to stop him. Stephen Mallory sees Toohey
as the embodiment of the world’s brutal irrationality and tries
to stop Toohey by shooting him. Howard Roark poses the greatest
threat to Toohey and suffers the most at Toohey’s hands, and he
reacts with cold indifference to the crazed columnist. When Toohey
and Roark meet at Stoddard’s temple, Toohey expects the meeting
to be a fiery clash between two powerful enemies. Instead, Toohey
finds that Roark does not even think about him. Roark thinks of
Toohey not as an equal, but as a distasteful nuisance. Roark’s ability
to ignore Toohey confirms the latter’s mediocrity.
Dominique and Keating form an unhappy union that contrasts with
the idyllic marriage that earlier seems possible between Katie and
Keating. Both Katie and Keating feel that they could make each other
happy; Keating could protect Katie from Toohey and Katie could make
Keating feel honest and pure. Yet Keating is too weak and greedy
to know what is good for him. Dominique and Keating marry not to
find happiness, but because Dominique wants to punish herself. She
hates living in a world that does not understand Roark, and to fight
successfully on Roark’s behalf would mean stooping to the tactics
of the world she hates. The marriage frustrates Keating, who enjoys
the congratulations of his friends but fears his wife’s cold indifference.
Throughout The Fountainhead Rand illustrates
Roark’s individuality and strength on conviction by highlighting
his apathy toward or distaste for institutions. He gets expelled
from the Stanton Institute of Technology because his designs are
too modern and he is unwilling to conform to conventional standards.
But this conservative reaction to his work does not faze him, and,
wholly uninterested in working at a conventional design firm such
as Francon & Heyer, he seeks to work for the individualistic
Henry Cameron. Similarly, at the trial, in Chapter 12,
Roark makes no attempt to put forth a defense that could actually
win him the case. He does not care about the legal system or about
triumphing in it; rather, he seeks only to defend the integrity
of his work. He shows the same lack of concern for marriage; because
he sees it as a meaningless formality, he feels no jealousy toward
Keating about his marriage to Dominique and feels no compunction
about committing adultery with her. He considers all value systems
but his own utterly irrelevant.
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