The Fountainhead: Understanding the Major Characters
by Robert BidinottoAyn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead powerfully and credibly depicts how important moral integrity is in maintaining one’s personal independence, and in achieving success and happiness. Rand makes her case by depicting characters whose lives and choices represent the logical variations on her philosophical and psychological themes.
Readers of the novel may find the following chart useful. It summarizes the differing premises, goals, and methods of each of the story’s five major characters – and the respective consequences for each of them.
| Character | Premise | Ends | Means | Results |
| Roark | Integrity leads to success & happiness | His work, done his way | Exercise uncompromising integrity | Success: his work done his way |
| Dominique | Integrity leads to destruction by the world | Preserving her integrity | Abandon worldly values, success & happiness | Discovers that her premise is in error. |
| Keating | Integrity is an obstacle to popularity | Popularity & social success | Reject integrity, seek popularity via pandering | Failure in his quest for popularity |
| Toohey | Integrity is an obstacle to power over others | Power over others | Weaken others by attacking their integrity | Failure in his quest for power over men of integrity |
| Wynand | Integrity is an obstacle to practical success | Values & happiness | Seek power over others | Failure of power to bring him values & happiness |