The novel's story line is Roark's quest to build his type of buildings. Roark is opposed by persons such as the Dean, Guy Francon, Ralston Holcolmbe, John Erik Snyte, Peter Keating, and Ellsworth Toohey in a conflict pitting an independent thinker against every conceivable type of psychological dependent. Ayn Rand's theme is perfectly expressed by her story. This integration of literary elements can be further seen by examining the book's characters, both major and minor. Each character is a carefully etched variation on the book's theme. In some cases, this is fairly obvious; in others, it is not obvious at all.
Howard Roark is an exemplar of the creative mind. He is more than an independent thinker; he is a genius. He is a fictional example of the greatest minds of history, the exalted thinkers who discovered important new truths only to be rejected by society. The Wright Brothers were scoffed at, Robert Fulton was ridiculed, and Louis Pasteur was bitterly denounced. In the field of architecture, Modernist designers like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright fought a decades-long struggle to win acceptance for their new ideas. The histories of science, philosophy, and art are filled with examples of innovative thinkers whose ideas were rejected by the men of their times. Roark's character, his struggle and triumph, are Ayn Rand's impassioned tribute to the great freethinkers who have carried mankind forward on their shoulders, have often met hysterical opposition, and have rarely received the recognition they deserve. The character of Howard Roark holds a place in the history of world literature — along with such giants as Antigone and Dr. Stockman in Ibsen's An Enemy of the People — as a paragon of human independence.
Keating and Toohey are also obvious variations on the novel's theme. Keating is a status seeker, a man so afraid to risk social disapproval that he willingly surrenders his mind to others. He is an example of the pitiable nature of conformity — the motives, the behavior, the consequences, resulting in a man whose soul is voluntarily turned over to society. Despite an endless series of malicious actions, Keating is ultimately a pathetic person, not an evil one, and the pathos contains a warning: A man betrays his soul at his own peril. The person who is dependent on social approval for his self-esteem sacrifices his values and his mind, and necessarily ends as an empty shell of a man. Keating, like the main character in Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, is a superb literary example of conformity, of one form of dependence on others.
