I desired to get a scholarship from Ayn Ryand. I wrote an essay on her novel, "The Fountainhead." I didnt even read the book, but wrote an essay. Of course, I didnt win teh scholarship. I posted the essay here, to see what you all think about it...
In “The Fountainhead”, Ellsworth Toohey is a hidden genius in his own way. Even though he seems like a weak, middle aged man, he is the one who knows how to persuade people, without them realizing it. His brilliant mind distinguishes that once people realize that they are being persuaded most of then usually become defensive, and instantly reject any information that they don’t believe in. Toohey is a cold hearted, power hungry tyrant, who engages his listeners into his speeches. His voice has the power to hypnotize people and bring them together to listen and believe in his views and theories. He is like a snake that hypnotizes its prey before destroying it. Toohey’s takes a position against Stalin, presents his views and theories through his speeches on communism, socialism, ideologies to his hypnotized prey. The speeches that might seem to us, readers, arrogant, repulsive and simply empty words that for some reason so powerfully manage to engage Toohey’s audience.
The quote by Dominique Francon, the daughter of one of the most honorable architects at that time, is an example of Toohey’s power over members of society. Dominique sees her now brilliant guide, Ellsworth Toohey, as a perfection that the world should reach out for. She is simply hypnotized to idolize his powerful mind. She talks how he is everything that the person should be. He is simply perfect. Dominique compares Toohey to the other members of society. She talks about herself and other human beings as people who have so much more to accomplish as individuals. On the other hand, Toohey is the mind, a person who is ideal, who accomplished everything in his life, and is the guiding spirit, that everyone should follow with pride.
All of the humans are like puzzles. They are, as Dominique states, “…unfinished, broken up into so many different pieces that don't fit together.” Of course, how can pieces arranged in a wrong order, or positioned the wrong way fit together? Each one of us knows that the puzzle consists of pieces that have certain shapes, and only a piece of the puzzle that has the right shape is destined to fit in with that certain, other piece of that same puzzle. Every child knows that it’s impossible to put any pieces in the puzzle together for it to actually come together and form the right picture. Each person is a puzzle. Each one of us has different character, talents, appearance, beliefs, qualities, destinies, the way we view ourselves, and what information appeals to us. Those are just some pieces of the puzzle that should come together in a certain way to form an unbreakable, perfect, us. In Dominique’s mind Toohey reached that perfection. His puzzle consists of ideal pieces that came together in the only right way and formed his stable, perfect character.
In reality, as the book progresses, we see that’s simply not true. He is a person who only wants power, and goes to any measures to get it. His only perfection, the power to persuade people, is used for evil. Used just to benefit him and make people believe that he is the reason people should be honored to sacrifice themselves for. He makes Dominique believe that it’s ok for her to be punished just because he, Ellsworth Toohey, exists in the world.
At that moment and time in the story, Peter Keating is an unstable character who is in-between in his beliefs. Keating is the husband of Dominique, but he doesn’t’ love her, and treats her like trash. Keating’s only reason to live is for fame. He is a thief, who doesn’t even bother to try and discover his own talent, but steals brilliant ideas from his classmate Roark, and gets credit for them. Peter isn’t fully persuaded by Toohey, but he isn’t strong or stubborn about his own beliefs. The questions he asks Dominique only shows that he wants to know why his wife talks about wanting to be punished and why she values Toohey so much. Keating might be even a little jealous that his wife is idealizing some other man, who is standing in front of him at that moment.
Dominique Francon plays a significant role in the story, because she shows how much power Toohey has over the people. She is like a person, in our everyday life, who is so strongly persuaded that she blindly follows the leader, and by following him, she makes other people follow him too. Curiosity guides people to follow even unreasonable leaders.
All of us have our ideals and most of us realize that those ideals aren’t perfect. We all know that people aren’t meant to be perfect. There is no such a thing as a perfect world, because there are no perfect people in our world. We strive to perfection; we know that even if we can get extremely close to it, we will never reach ultimate perfection. People in “The Fountainhead” didn’t know that. That’s why they were so easily mislead, especial by the corrupted mind of Ellsworth Toohey.
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