Stange Passage in Fountainhead

I, too, have great difficulty believing the relationship between Dominique and Roark. While I can understand that Dominique has a malevolent worldview which accounts for her mixed premises and twisted actions, I do NOT understand why Roark loves and accepts her in return.

Toohey, like Dominique, wants to destroy Roark. And Roark's response to Toohey (indifference) is what I consider noble and heroic. But his response to Dominique shows a kind of self-hatred in Roark. Why else would he choose to love someone who works for his destruction?

Post 41

Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 10:34am

Eric, that's a very interesting question, never thought to even ask that!

I'm going to think about that one for a bit, but I'll venture a quick 30 second rationalization, first thing that came to my head. Rand described Dominique as herself "in a bad mood." Roark was supposed to be Rand's ideal man. Perhaps Roark likes Dominque simply because Rand wrote it that way, Rand's personal fantasy.

My Jungian answer would introduce the concept of projection, Dominque saw the qualities in Roark that she shared (or ideally, potentially wanted to share), and Roark responded in kind, sensing that Dominque DID have the potential to share those qualities. This would also explain Roark's friendship with Wynand, and Wynand's love for Roark. Actually, I don't think the Roark/Dominiqe relationship can be properly understood without considering the Roark/Wynand relationship. Dominique is competing with Wynand for Roark, after all.

I don't know if I would base a real life relationship on their dynamic, though.

Post 42

Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 3:25pm

Its no wonder that guys around here think women are totally screwy. Is Dominique supposed to be the objectivist version of an ideal women? I suppose so after reading the thing over there in the jokes about how a housewife should be.... she fits that mold very well.

What was she trying to do by attempting to destroy Roark... bring him down to her level? That's how she expresses her love and admiration for the man of her dreams. I can understand the attraction, but why did she marry two men to spite Roark. She practically brags to her hubby that Roark was her first and that he raped her. How twisted is that?

Oh yeah, she is certainly a piece of work.

Post 43

Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 3:45pm

I guess Dominique is what happens when you go into overkill mode of the idea of a little girl looking adorably at you and saying, "Don't tickle me. Don't tickle me."

Michael

Post 44

Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 4:38pm

I typically find impressive posts from all of you, but you need to go back to school on this one.

The title of this thread is incorrect. What you are objecting to is not a passage, but characterizations which dominate much of the novel and propel the plot.

Dominique is trying to kill the part(s) of herself that put her (i.e. her values) in conflict with the conventional society around her. Marrying Keating and Wynand are the result of this conflict and motive.
She says so clearly.

The conflict between her vision of what the world (i.e. individuals and their products) should be and could be, and what exists is so excruciatingly painful she must do something to resolve it.

That she chooses unwisely may not be what you want to see in your girlfriend, but it makes for good drama.

She is, per se, not trying to destroy Roark. She believes he has no chance against the forces that (she believes) control the world.
She wants him, because of the good (healthy, individualistic, idealistic) aspects of her character. But, she has flaws, in the form of mistaken premises about what is possible in the world as it actually exists (within the novel). (He wants her for the same reasons, but lacks those flaws.)
She therefore wants him to abandon his goals and run off with her where they can hide from the world and live 'only for each other'.

(All of this is expressed quite clearly in the novel.)

Have you never felt like this?

Post 45

Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 6:50pm

Jeff, the confusion about the thread title may be that the original thread was Keith Brumly's questions regarding "the rape scene." I think today's posts are a divergence from the original thread.

Post 46

Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 10:03pm

One of the reasons why I typically recommend that someone new to Rand read Atlas first is because Dominique is so abstract. Most people are appalled by her at first glance.

It takes a great deal of mental work to understand Dominique's inner mechanisms -- I had to read the book twice to fully work all of it out.

I've always found Atlas much more straightforward and satisfying.

Post 47

Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 6:27am

One can not understand this scene in light of today's simpering sensibilities.

Dominique wants to distroy Roark just as surely as the works of art she smashes in the air shaft. Her compulsion takes its final form in combat. The so-called rape scene is a battle between warriors. It was not socially acceptable in the 40s for men and women to duke it out.

Post 48

Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 8:55am

Jeff - From what I see, I think everybody already knows what you stated and they are going on from there to analyze or grope or try to cope.

I can surely understand a woman loving you and still trying to do you dirty from personal experience - several times. Eric above opened the can of worms for me. With all the other women in the world, what keeps Roark going back for more? (Or even what kept me doing the same back then, I guess?)

Ego?

(Sorry. Couldn't resist that.)

Michael

Post 49

Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 9:39am

Joe,

In Jungian terms, could it be that Roark is the "Creator" Archetype (Brahma) and Dominique the "Destroyer" (Shiva)?

Brahma and Shiva need one another, and this may be a hint at what ties Dominique and Roark together. Ultimately, Dominique (viewed as the Destroyer) uses her specific powers of destruction (in this case self-destruction) to assist Roark in dynamiting Cortlandt.

Even considering this in Jungian terms, I find it hard to understand why Roark would bestow his love upon someone who tries to undermine his career before every sexual encounter. Unless this is all Dominique testing his strength, and because he somehow knows that, he doesn't let all her antagonistic actions affect him; perhaps it's something he deals with, knowing that eventually she'll be satisfied.

I agree with Jennifer; this disturbing attribute of Fountainhead leads me to prefer Atlas Shrugged.

Eric

Post 50

Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 10:16am

An interesting question, Eric. I don't have an immediate answer, but I did tackle Roark's destructive capacity in THE TRICKSTER ARCHETYPE AND OBJECTIVISM at jungianobjectivism.tripod.com.

There I make the case that Roark embodies both traits of creator and destroyer...more in the relationship between Roark to Toohey than in Roark to Dominique. The idea of an Objectivist destroyer is controversial, since the philosophy is seen as one of creation...and in the case of Dominique, she wasn't really destroying the bad to make way for Roark, instead she was destroying the good...and Roark COULD have blown up the building without her.
There is the idea of Galt, in Dagny's early view, of him as the "great destroyer", which probably better illustrates your idea.

I will put one other Jungian theory out there for explanation of Roark and Dominique, that of the Animus/Anima projection. Roark and Dominique are typical of the love/hate relationship found in much fiction (my favorite example is the Han Solo/Princess Leah romance.) You know how it goes: "You disgust me, yet I am strangely attracted to you...".
It's a cliche, and Rand was fond of inverting cliches, so maybe seen in this sense, it's not so difficult to see their relationship.

And if one reads Paglia's SEXUAL PERSONAE, you see a common theme throughout western art and literature of femme fetales and men submitting to women fatally, where otherwise rational men can't resist the siren song and fall prey to all sorts of horrors in the form of the feminine. Rand, in her celebration of masculinity embodied in reason and goal directed, rational selfishness, is able to reverse the cliche by having the "irrational" female submit to the powers of reason. That could explain the relationship in literary terms.

Post 51

Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 1:37pm

Well, I liked the Star Wars analogy. I would still strongly recommend Atlas Shrugged over Fountainhead any day. Its a far better book. Better characters, plot twists a heroine who is a hero because she used her mind. Dominique was a sick and twisted bitch, supposedly rational but used sex as her primary tool. If I were a feminist, I would hate Rand after reading this book. Fortunately, I read Atlas first and had some understanding of the philosophy. If she had stopped at the Fountainhead, there would be far fewer female objectivists out there and there aren't many of us now.
(Edited by katdaddy on 3/13, 1:51pm)

Post 52

Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 12:34pm

The "rape" scene in The Fountainhead wasn't rape. What I objected to in that encounter was that afterwards Roark seemed to treat it as a one-time thing. He was surprised he even thought of Dominque when he got on the train some days later for New York.

As for Dagny shooting the guard, in real life the guard would have been shot out of hand and a few more inside too. You try to take prisoners in such situations you'll get yourself and your men killed instead.

It is worth noting that that guard was going to get shot becuase in We The Living the border guard shot and killed Kira. It was a mater of professional symetry in my opinion. We can simply posit that Rand underwrote Dagny's motivations.

--Brant

Post 53

Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 11:51am

Here are Dominique's words from The Fountainhead (pg 671)

"He was the first man who had me...."
"He was working in a quarry. He didn't ask my consent. He raped me. That's how it began."

Post 54

Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 12:18pm

I'm not coming down on either side of this (I haven't thought about it very much), but remember what the author said about this scene. I believe Ayn Rand's exact words were "If it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation."

Jason

Post 55

Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 5:04pm

hmmm. now there's a thinker. I thought in Ms. Rand's world contradictions did not exist... but then of course sex doesn't count.

Its a part of her S&M fantasy....Its a part of her S&M dream...

Post 56

Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 5:24pm