The Fountainhead

The second type of men who reject Roark are the conformists — those who blindly accept the ideas of their peers. Many such individuals can be found in life. Most people who hold religious convictions — be they Catholics, Protestants, Jews, or Muslims — do not study comparative religion, but simply accept the beliefs of their families. Some individuals surrender their career preference or romantic choice in order to meet their parents' expectations. Others may know the dangers of drug use but, to please their friends, indulge nevertheless. Similarly, the universe of The Fountainhead is populated with such characters. Numerous individuals reject Roark's ideas solely because his thinking clashes with the beliefs of those around them. For example, Robert Mundy, a self-made man who grew up in poverty in Georgia, is one such person. Mundy asks Roark to build him a southern-style plantation house, not because he values it, but because it is a symbol of the aristocrats who ridiculed him as a young man. Though Roark explains patiently that such a house would not stand for his own struggle and values, but for the values of his tormentors, Mundy refuses to acknowledge Roark's point; he wants the plantation house because others valued it. Mrs. Wayne Wilmot of Long Island wants to hire Roark so that she can tell her friends she has Austen Heller's architect. She wants an English Tudor home because of "the picture post cards she had seen, [and] the novels of country squires she had read." Members of the board of the Janss-Stuart Real Estate Company refuse Roark's design because "no one has ever built anything like it." John Erik Snyte, an architect for whom Roark briefly works, differs from Guy Francon's commitment to the Classical style. Snyte is not wedded to any specific school of design; he cheerfully gives the public whatever style it wants. Mostly, there is Peter Keating, who is driven by an almost uncontrollable urge to impress others and win acclaim. Keating seeks prestige, and his method is to fawn over others, especially those in authority, and spout back to them their own ideas. He is an intellectual chameleon, who takes on the beliefs of others in order to gain their approval. Keating even expresses his policy as a formal principle, when he states to Roark, "Always be what people want you to be. Then you've got them where you want them." Keating's code is the perfect expression of a conformist's soul — putting the beliefs of others above and before the functioning of his own mind. Such an unthinking mentality is incapable of recognizing the genius of Roark's work — or that of any other innovator.