Gail Wynand, contemplating suicide, looks back on his life, searching for a reason to live. He remembers growing up in the harsh slums of Hell’s Kitchen, being the smart, tough leader of a street gang and being entirely self-educated. Wynand remembers the long, arduous struggle to start The New York Banner and to build its circulation; he thinks of the men he has ruined, the fortune he has made, the power he has attained—and of the way he has used his genius to pander to the lowest tastes of the crowd. The thought of death brings him no fear; the thought of life causes the fear of identifying his life’s meaning. Wynand knows that he will not die now.
Ellsworth Toohey, for his own reasons, brings Wynand and Dominique together. Dominique has been married to Keating for almost two years. The marriage has helped Keating become the most successful architect in the country but has left Dominique utterly unaffected. Wynand, whose real estate empire exceeds his journalistic one, is planning a development—Stoneridge Homes. In the Depression, with building at a minimum, architects compete for the commission. Toohey, under the guise of seeking the commission for Keating, his protégé, brings about the introduction of Dominique to Wynand. Toohey’s motives in this introduction involve his endless quest for power. Wynand is his major target, Dominique his minor. Toohey is scheming to take control of The New York Banner, to reach the day when he dictates editorial policy on New York’s most popular newspaper. To this end, he worms his way into the confidence of Alvah Scarrett, Wynand’s chief editor. He recommends candidates for jobs as they open up and gradually gets his followers onto Wynand’s staff. He uses his influence to begin advocating his philosophy throughout the pages of The Banner. In various subtle forms, he has his followers push Lois Cook and her book, The Gallant Gallstone. His motives in this are typical. If he can get Lois Cook, his follower, to the top of the literary profession, then he not only acquires greater power over that important field, but he makes it much more difficult for an independent thinker to gain recognition. Just as Keating’s ascension in architecture makes it more difficult for Roark to succeed, so Lois Cook’s establishment will intensify the hardships for a Roark-like writer. If a fawning conformist like Keating is considered a great architect, then a bold innovator like Roark cannot be. Similarly, with Lois Cook and her antitheses in literature. When literary success requires posturing nonconformity, it leaves no room for a sincere man of genius. Further, the theme of Lois Cook’s book is that individuals are powerless to control their own destinies, that they are at the mercy of some powerful outside force. This fits perfectly with Toohey’s message that an individual is merely a cog in a vast social machine, and that each individual should voluntarily submit to society’s commands.
The problem for Toohey is that Wynand is too observant. Despite the subtlety with which Toohey orchestrates the attempt to advertise The Gallant Gallstone on The Banner, Wynand notices his attempt and immediately puts an end to it. Toohey needs some means to distract Wynand, to shift his attention away from his paper and on to something else. Knowing Wynand’s reputation as a womanizer, Toohey seeks to introduce him to Dominique. Toohey hopes that Wynand will be so captivated by Dominique’s combination of beauty, charm, and intellect that he will get caught up in a relationship with her, thereby paying less attention to the details of his newspaper. This is the principal reason that he attempts to introduce them. He secretly purchases Mallory’s statue of Dominique and gives it to Wynand as a gift. He believes that after Wynand sees it, he will be eager to meet the model.
Toohey also has a secondary purpose in bringing Dominique together with Wynand. He realizes that Dominique is a potentially dangerous antagonist. She is one of the few characters who understands that Toohey’s real goal is the acquisition of spiritual and political power. Further, she regards such a destructive purpose as utterly evil. Toohey realizes that if Dominique ever changes her mind regarding the pessimistic philosophy she holds—if she comes to the conclusion that the world deserves better than the collectivist dictatorship that Toohey plans for it—then she will be able to take steps against him. With her brains, she will make a formidable adversary. Toohey would like to throw the deathblow of Dominique’s soul. He understands both that she married Keating as an attempt to eradicate her attitude of hero worship, and that the attempt failed. Toohey hopes that a relationship with Gail Wynand—a man whose professional life is exclusively devoted to the most shameless pandering—will be able to accomplish what marriage to Peter Keating did not. If immersion in the corruption of Wynand’s career can make Dominique indifferent to the sight of a hero, than she will not be outraged by Toohey’s attempt to destroy all heroes. Her potential threat to him will thereby be removed. This is also one of his reasons for presenting Mallory’s statue of Dominique to Wynand.
Wynand falls in love with Dominique. Her idealism—an ineradicable devotion to the highest achievements possible to man—is exceptional. Wynand, for all his pandering, retains in his soul a similar undying commitment to man at his noblest and best. He is drawn to Dominique for her best qualities. Dominique goes with Wynand for a cruise on his yacht, the I Do. He proposes marriage to her. Dominique, motivated by the same reason that impelled her to marry Keating, accepts. In effect, she marries more than a man, she marries The New York Banner and every tawdry value it stands for. She becomes “Mrs. Wynand Papers,” and will seek to torment her husband for the cheap vulgarity of his journalism—and, above all, for his campaign against the Stoddard Temple.
