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Part 4: Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Fountainhead, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Individualism
Integrity vs. Conformity
Rationality vs. Emotion
Love and Selfishness
Religion and Morality
Summary
Analysis
Roger Enright buys the site of the Cortlandt building, and hires Roark once again to build low-cost housing units that he can rent out. Wynand and Dominique get a divorce. Toohey wins his case before the labor board, and Wynand is ordered to reinstate him. Toohey reports for work cheerfully, but is uncomfortable when Wynand doesn’t leave Toohey’s office, watching him work. Toohey suddenly hears the presses stop, and Wynand tells him the Banner no longer exists—he has bought out all the shareholders, including Mitchell Layton, and has decided to close it. Wynand thinks “it’s proper that [he] should meet [the end of the Banner] with [Toohey].” Soon after, Toohey begins work at another newspaper called the Courier.
Wynand seems to have been inspired by Roark to finally grasp his integrity by closing the Banner. He does this on Toohey’s first day back at work, thinking that both of them—the two power-hungry parasites—would meet their ends together. Toohey, however, quickly moves on to another newspaper from where he can build a following again. By this, Rand seems to imply that people like Toohey are always around, furthering their ideas of selflessness and the virtues of collectivism. She seems to be saying that socialist ideas still pose a danger to America.
Themes
Wynand calls Roark’s office, asking him to come see him the next day. Roark hasn’t seen him or spoken to him since the trial, and Roark is eager to go see Wynand. But when Roark gets to Wynand’s office, Wynand treats him formally, as if they were never friends. He tells Roark that he would like him to build the Wynand Building for him in Hell’s Kitchen, and that it must be the tallest skyscraper in the city. He says he’d wanted this building to be a monument to his life, but that there is no longer anything to commemorate. Instead, he wants Roark to “Build it as a monument to that spirit which is [Roark’s]….and which could have been [Wynand’s].”
Before Wynand’s life fell apart, he had promised Roark that he would let him build the skyscraper, and he fulfills this promise. Wynand no longer thinks his life should be celebrated in a skyscraper—he acknowledges that he has failed to achieve greatness—but nevertheless wants the building to represent the heroism of the human spirit, as embodied in Roark.
Themes
