Rationality vs. Emotion Theme Analysis

The Fountainhead details Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, with Howard Roark, the protagonist, as an embodiment of Objectivist principles and Rand’s ideal of the perfect human being. One of the tenets of Objectivism is that reason must always be man’s guiding principle, rather than emotion. In the novel, Roark stresses the importance of reason with his every action, while the unsympathetic characters allow their emotions to govern them or use other people’s emotions to manipulate them. Rand clearly believes that rationality is superior to emotion and makes her case throughout the novel.

Everything about Roark—the way he thinks, works, and interacts with the world—is pared down and logical. Rand thus glorifies him as an archetype of the ideal individual, demonstrating how this man who lives by reason alone is superior to all the other characters in the novel. Roark rarely displays his emotions. This is why most people dislike him—he seems cold and invulnerable to them—and his landlady, Keating’s mother, thinks that she would like to wrangle some emotion out of him because “an emotion would be the equivalent of seeing him broken.” When one of his buildings, the Stoddard Temple, is razed to the ground because the client is unhappy with it, Dominique, Roark’s soulmate, is deeply hurt. Roark tells her that she is suffering more than he is because he is “not capable of suffering completely. […] It goes only down to a certain point and then it stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it’s not really pain.” Though Roark is not entirely unfeeling, his emotions never control him.

Roark’s guiding principle for architectural design, too, is logic. He is opposed to traditional design styles because he sees no need for things like cornices and statues of gargoyles, since they serve no purpose. His aesthetic is different from what most people are used to, so he initially doesn’t get enough clients and almost runs out of money when a possible commission for the Manhattan Bank Building comes his way. While the board of the bank appreciates “the logic of the plan” he draws for them, they ask Roark to make some modifications since they don’t like the “queer stark” façade. Roark refuses and explains his reasons, and the chairman of the board says that while Roark is being logical, he is not allowing for the “incalculable human element of emotion.” Since he would have to give up on his logical design principles to accept this job, Roark ends up refusing it.

Just like he argues against the board members of the Manhattan Bank calmly and logically, Roark always stands up for his beliefs and is able to express them clearly and articulately. All his decisions are carefully considered and thought out, and they can all be rationally explained. At the end of the novel, he blows up the Cortlandt building because its design was changed without his permission, and he is even able to explain this extreme action in court so logically that he is acquitted. He presents his argument calmly and clearly, with evidence that likens his pride in his individualistic architectural style to that of pioneers in several fields through the ages, including the inventor of the wheel and the creator of anesthesia, who forged ahead with their ideas despite societal disapproval.

In contrast to Roark, Ellsworth Toohey, a devious intellectual who schemes and plots to gain control of the masses, functions solely through emotion. Toohey is first described as a magnificent voice—the “voice of a giant”—that stuns people into submission even if they do not actually pay attention to his words. The voice begins by calling his audience his “friends” and then adds “‘brothers,’ […] softly, involuntarily, both full of emotion and smiling apologetically at the emotion.” Unlike Roark, who seems completely immune to the people around him and therefore invites their disdain, Toohey exudes a genial warmth that appeals to the emotions of his audience and gives them a sense of importance. Unlike Roark’s, Toohey’s arguments appeal to emotions rather than logic. The writing style of his first book, Sermons in Stone, is so emotional that even though readers can only see it in “ordered print,” they can guess that “it had been blurred in manuscript by a hand unsteady with emotion.”

In the final pages of The Fountainhead, Toohey reveals to Keating that the way to gain complete control over a person is to take away his reason, which Toohey calls “a weapon” against being dominated. In order to do this, Toohey says, one must tell people that “reason is limited. That there’s something above it. […] ‘Instinct’—‘Feeling’—‘Revelation’—‘Divine Intuition’ [.]” If someone were to argue and say this does not make sense, one should stress “that there’s something above sense. […] He must feel. He must believe.” Since it is impossible to rule a thinking man, Toohey wants others to be as illogical and unreasonable as possible so that he can build a world populated by the average and the common. In doing so, he’ll ensure that he and a few other men like him can control the masses.

Rand implies that while thinkers and creators like Roark are governed by reason, mediocre artists and critics, much like Toohey, use emotion to manipulate the masses. For instance, Jules Fougler, the drama critic for the Banner, decides to praise a play that he recognizes as terrible because, he says, there is no achievement “for a critic in praising a good play.” He wants to “impress [his] own personality upon people” by convincing them that a worthless play is exceptional. He tells Keating that he will like the play only if he is “a real human being with a big, big heart full of laughter, who has preserved the uncorrupted capacity of his childhood for pure emotion.” Keating is always easily influenced and is immediately determined to like the play, even though Fougler has not given him one logical reason to do so. Roark disparagingly calls people like Fougler and Keating “second-handers” who “have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people.” Since they live off other people, they are “parasites.”

In Rand’s view, rationality is not only clearly superior, but letting oneself be ruled by emotion is also dangerous. Canny villains like Toohey are able to thrive in society only because their arguments are taken at face value rather than being rationally contested. When people like Keating let their emotions control their actions, Rand argues, they are in danger of losing themselves and letting manipulative people like Toohey rule society.