The conflict of The Fountainhead is presented immediately. The Dean of Stanton Institute believes that all great architecture has been done already by the masters of the past. The rules of design come from them; all that modern architects can do is copy. The Dean believes that truth is found in the beliefs of others and that an individual should follow the established route rather than forge a new path. The Dean is a conformist.
Peter Keating is a conformist even more fully than the Dean. He, too, copies from past architects. In addition, Keating grovels before all superiors, agreeing with them in order to win approval. He uses people, leeches off of Roark's work, and characteristically seeks to meet the expectations of others. He even chose architecture rather than the field he loves — painting — only to satisfy his mother. "Always be what people want you to be," he tells Roark, codifying his toadying policy into a principle. Keating is a man who refuses to think for himself; he follows, he copies, he obeys. He is utterly dependent on others for his convictions. He permits his life to be dominated by them.
Roark, however, thinks for himself — indeed, part of the book's meaning is that this phrase is a redundancy. If one thinks, it is necessarily by and for oneself; there is no other way to do it. Roark believes that architecture is a creative field, that it is important to innovate, and that new ideas have far greater value than copies of old ones. His defense of the freethinking mind is eloquent and to the point: "Why is it so important — what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic — and only of addition at that?"
Roark upholds independence — the importance of a man thinking and acting for himself; in opposition to dependence — any form of an individual allowing his thought and life to be controlled by others. The essence of the book is the contrast and conflict between those who are independent and those who are dependent.
