The Fountainhead

Roark and Wynand return to the city in April, and Roark discovers that his design for the Cordtland Homes has been altered. Toohey insisted that Peter Keating hire Gus Webb and Gordon Prescott as associate designers, and they exerted an invisible influence over the project that Keating was unable to fight. When Keating apologizes to Roark, Roark only says that he should never have designed on Keating’s behalf in the first place, even when they were in college together. Roark asks Dominique to help him, and she agrees. Following his instructions, she arranges to run out of fuel while driving past the Cordtland Homes at a specific date and time, and she sends the watchman for help. She then hides in a ditch and watches as Roark detonates the entire Cordtland Homes project. She then runs back to her wrecked car and injures herself to match its state and avoid suspicion. Because she is able to aid Roark with serenity, she knows that she is now free of the fears that once kept them apart.

Dominique recovers from her injuries in Wynand’s penthouse. Roark gave himself up at the scene of the explosion and spent the night in jail before Wynand bailed him out. Now, Roark tells Dominique that he asked her to help him so that she would be trapped with Wynand until after the trial, lest she throw suspicion on them both. Roark wants to ensure that if he is sent to prison, Dominique will stay with Wynand to take care of him, although he isn’t willing to give up their relationship otherwise. Roark enters a plea of “not guilty” and refuses to say anything more. Meanwhile, Keating has holed himself up away from the public eye. Roark is condemned and vilified by the press and the public, with Toohey leading the campaign against him. However, Wynand orders the staff of his papers to run a non-stop campaign in favor of Roark. Wynand is thriving despite the opposition he faces, and he considers this endeavor to be a way to earn redemption and restore his own integrity after his paper’s part in the Stoddard trial. Wynand and Dominique are slandered, and there is a growing movement to boycott the Wynand press. As Alvah Scarret nears a nervous breakdown, Toohey tells him that this is their chance to take over The Banner.

Toohey visits Keating in his self-imposed isolation and interrogates him until Keating confesses to using Roark’s design. Once Keating gives Toohey the contract that he and Roark signed, Toohey berates him and subjects him to a monologue, explaining that his own motivation has always been to accrue power over others. He plans to destroy men of integrity and ability so that mediocrity and victimhood are enshrined as the ultimate virtue and the masses consent to give up on themselves, their lives, and their souls. He wants Roark behind bars because Roark is incorruptible, and Toohey wants to see the whole world caged in interdependent slavery. Despite Toohey’s confession, Keating is still too broken and dependent to reject him.

Toohey writes an editorial condemning Roark and publishes it in The Banner behind Wynand’s back. Wynand recalls the paper and fires Toohey, along with the men who facilitated the article’s printing. Toohey promises Wynand that he will soon return to run the paper himself. The Union of Wynand Employees goes on strike, as do many of Wynand’s unaffiliated employees. As a result, Wynand, Scarret, and a skeleton team of sub-standard workers are left to run the paper. Strikers demand that they rehire the fired men and reverse the paper’s stance on the Cordtland case. They also attack those who still work for Wynand. Wynand runs himself ragged to continue producing papers that have declined drastically in quality, and Dominique returns to her job with The Banner to help him. He visits Roark one night, and Roark acknowledges that Wynand’s campaign to defend him is actually harming Roark’s reputation. However, Roark doesn’t care about this, and he encourages Wynand to hold out and fight with everything he has, for Wynand’s own sake.

Wynand attends a board of directors meeting as the strike enters its second month. He is being castigated for the downward trajectory of the Wynand papers, and Scarret proposes that they compromise by agreeing to reverse the paper’s stand on the Cordtland case and rehiring all the fired employees except for Toohey. Wynand is essentially presented with an ultimatum. He must either agree to end the strike or close The Banner altogether. Feeling as though he is pulling the trigger of a gun at his temple, Wynand capitulates. Later, he walks aimlessly through New York and sees the issues of The Banner denouncing Roark in his name, and he knows that the strike is over. Finding himself in Hell’s Kitchen, Wynand realizes that he has never actually escaped the powerlessness of his childhood. He realizes that it was he who made it possible for the people who scorned him to do so since he created the paper to be the means for them to hold onto their power. He now realizes that his part in this is unforgivable.

The public discusses Wynand’s renunciation of Roark with much satisfaction, and Wynand refuses to hear Roark’s attempts to absolve him of guilt. Dominique goes to Roark and reports a ring of hers stolen so that the police and local reporters find her and Roark clearly having spent the night together. This causes the reporters to spread news of the scandal. Scarret has been running The Banner since Wynand’s capitulation and is furious on Wynand’s behalf. He spearheads a campaign against Dominique, painting her as an evil adulteress and blaming her for Wynand’s unpopular decisions. Wynand agrees to divorce Dominique, reads all the papers besmirching her reputation, and receives many letters of sympathy. Dominique returns to Francon’s home at his request and receives his fatherly support, and he reassures her that Roark will be acquitted and welcome there too.

Roark’s trial has a full audience, including Roark’s small group of friends and Toohey’s mob of supporters. The prosecution calls its witnesses: the night watchman, the police, and Keating. Keating is drunk, but he admits that Roark designed the project and explains their agreement. Roark calls no witnesses but makes a long speech admitting to blowing up the Cortlandt site and claiming that it was his right to do so since he did not receive the promised payment of seeing it built to his specifications. He describes how society has always punished innovative minds while benefiting from their creations, and he condemns the “second-hander” who opposes the virtue of the ego in favor of mental slavery. He refuses to live in a world where work is no longer exchanged by free consent, and he states that creative endeavors are worth more than any act of charity. By this logic, he has simply refused to let his work be stolen. The judge and prosecutor discuss whether this changes Roark’s plea, but the jury—whom Roark picked carefully to exclude any second-handers—quickly returns with a verdict of not guilty.

Toohey wins the case against his firing before the labor board and obeys Wynand’s order that he come in to work that same night before 9:00 pm. He tries to ignore Wynand’s presence in his office as he settles in to work, but at nine o’clock precisely, the presses stop, and Wynand tells Toohey that he’s out of a job because The Banner no longer exists. Mr. Enright buys the Cortlandt site and plans for Roark to build his low-rent apartments there for anyone to lease. Dominique and Wynand divorce. Toohey starts working for The Courier. Wynand organizes a formal meeting with Roark and asks him to build the Wynand Building. It is to be the tallest and possibly the last skyscraper in New York. Wynand also plans to liquidate his empire before he dies, and he asks Roark to create the Wynand Building as a monument not to his life but to Roark’s own spirit.

Months later, Dominique visits the construction site of the Wynand Building. The skeleton framework is now complete, and the cladding of glass and masonry is quickly following. On the fence outside, she notices a sign that reads, “Howard Roark, Architect.” She introduces herself on-site as Mrs. Roark and meets Roark at the very top of the structure.