At the end of Part One, the difference in the respective fortunes of Keating and Roark is striking: Keating celebrates his ascension to partnership in the country’s most popular firm, whereas the penniless Roark is on his way to a granite quarry.
Other plot elements are introduced in this section. Mrs. Keating opposes her son’s engagement to Catherine Halsey and insists that he woo Dominique Francon. Dominique is the boss’s daughter, and Guy Francon practically begs Peter to establish a relationship with her. How will it look, Mrs. Keating asks Peter, if he prefers Katie to Dominique? It will insult Guy Francon and cost Peter a chance at the partnership. Additionally, Mrs. Keating stresses the importance of choosing the right wife for a successful career. Because Katie is plain and dull, she impresses no one. But Dominique’s beauty and poised elegance command the respectful attention of everyone she meets. Peter cannot rise into the rarified air of high society with a vulgar little guttersnipe for a wife. His success requires a high-class woman at his side.
In keeping with the wishes of both his mother and his boss, and despite his love for Katie, Peter proposes marriage to Dominique Francon. Dominique is beautiful, elegant, and haughty—everything Katie is not. A brilliant, free-spirited, outspoken woman, Dominique sees with her own eyes and understands with her own mind. She recognizes that Keating is a manipulative fraud and says so to his face. She responds to his proposal with the remark that if she ever wishes to punish herself for some terrible misdeed, she will marry Keating. Keating proposes for the same reason he becomes an architect in the first place—because Dominique’s poise, grace, and beauty will impress others in a way that Katie never could.
Dominique writes a column, “Your House,” for The New York Banner, devoted to architectural design and interior decorating. The Banner is a lowbrow, yellow-press tabloid, specializing in a combination of lurid and overly-sentimental stories aimed at those with the most vulgar tastes. The paper is owned by Gail Wynand, a brilliant man of consummate artistic judgment, but one who panders ceaselessly to the lowest tastes of the crowd in order to gain wealth and political influence. (This ambivalent quality in Wynand’s character has great impact on later events of the story.) Henry Cameron, on his deathbed, warns Roark of the dangers represented by the Wynand papers and by the factors in human nature that make them possible.
At the end of Part One, Rand has introduced the five major characters of the book—Howard Roark, Dominique Francon, Gail Wynand, Peter Keating, and Ellsworth Toohey—although most of the characters have not yet met one another. As the conflict develops, the meeting of the characters occurs in subsequent chapters.
