Roark is a brilliant young architect of the modern school, whose bold and innovative designs are rejected by large segments of society. Although Ayn Rand does not base Roark's life on the specific events of Frank Lloyd Wright's life, Roark does possess many of the qualities and face many of the obstacles that the great, real-life, American modernist did.
Like Wright (1869–1959), Roark is fiercely independent. He believes in the merit of his revolutionary designs and has the courage to stand for them in the face of an antagonistic society. He is presented as the author's version of an ideal man — one who embodies the virtues of Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy. Roark is the antithesis of contemporary belief that an individual is molded by social forces. He is not the product of his upbringing, his economic class, his family, his religious training, or his social background. He is a product of the choices he has made. Roark is an example of free will — the theory that an individual has the power, by virtue of the choices he makes, to control the outcome of his own life. A man's thinking and values are not controlled by God or the fates or society or any external factor — but solely by his own choice. Others (like Keating) may choose to submit, but Roark will not. He is his own man.
Because Roark is his own man from the beginning, there is no change in the essence of Roark's character. He learns a significant amount over the course of the story — about architecture, the "principle behind the Dean," and other matters — but his fundamental convictions remain untouched. The essence of his character is an unswerving devotion to his own thinking and judgment. Roark is like this from the first moment of the story to the last — and, most likely, he has been this way since early childhood. An independent man like Roark learns a great deal of content in his life — indeed, because of his commitment to the fullest use of his own mind, he is the only type of person who can. But his method of functioning, his devotion to autonomous thinking, does not change. Because Roark's method of functioning doesn't change, he is able to create and successfully fight for revolutionary designs.
