The same is true regarding many of the book's lesser characters. Henry Cameron and Steven Mallory are good examples. Cameron and Mallory are both innovative thinkers, creative geniuses whose new ideas are rejected by society. Both refuse to compromise, and each pays a price for his integrity. Both, in other words, are independent in thought and action. But both are hurt and angered by the unjust treatment they receive from society. Both remain true to their ideas, neither conforms — but Cameron becomes bitter and cynical and Mallory, when Roark meets him, is moving in that direction. Like Roark, they are uncompromising men of integrity; they, too, in thought and deed, will not betray their own minds. But unlike Roark, Cameron and Mallory permit society's rejection to fester at the emotional level. The rejection matters to them in a personal way, a way that goes beyond the harmful impact on their careers. Where Roark has integrated the virtue of independence throughout every aspect of his person — thought, action, and emotion — Cameron and Mallory have fallen short. Though admirable men, they possess a tragic flaw absent in Roark: they allow the beliefs of others to cause them emotional pain. Consequently, they do not live in the full state of joy and pride that their glorious achievements should provide. The undeserved suffering of these two great men is, at one level, an indictment of a tradition-bound society that rejects innovators. At a deeper level, their suffering is an exhortation to original thinkers not to permit the beliefs of others to hold power over them. These two heroes thereby represent one aspect of the theme: The virtue of independence must be assimilated into every aspect of a man's life, the emotional as well as the intellectual and the practical.
Austen Heller also needs to be understood as a variation on the novel's theme of independence. Heller is a journalist who stands for the same principles of limited government and political/economic freedom that animated the founding fathers of the United States. His writings defend the "inalienable rights" of the individual. Further, Heller will not contribute a penny to charity, but contributes more than he can afford to help political prisoners around the globe. He does not give to charities, because supporting non-working people encourages a form of dependence. He helps political prisoners, because in defending individual rights against the oppression of a dictator, they stand for political freedom, a form of independence. Heller is a carefully etched variation on the novel's theme of independence as a requirement of man's life.
