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Excellence, criticism, success, tradition, individuality, popular opinion, creativity, and conformity; these are merely a number of the extraordinarily powerful themes set in motion in The Fountainhead. In her novel The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand communicates with her readers more often than not through the chief conflicts of excellence verse achievement and individualism verses popular opinion. Ayn Rand's book has greatly been influenced by her life experiences; therefore, she can relate to her audience on a more delicate note, creating a private argument inside the readers’ mind. There are countless quotes that could be explained that have a huge influence on the numerous extraordinarily powerful themes of The Fountainhead; however, only three of these extremely vital quotations will be scrutinized.
In this primary citation, Gail Wynand pronounces to Howard Roark: “There’s a particular kind of people that I despise. Those who seek some sort of a higher purpose or ‘universal goal,’ who don’t know what to live for, who moan that they must ‘find themselves.’” In the reader’s mind, abridgment of this quote can be quite difficult because it pertains to various instances in The Fountainhead. The majority of readers would consider that in the dialogue of this quote, Gail Wynand is explaining to Howard Roark about his feelings regarding ‘second-handers.’
Gail is asserting that he can’t put up with people who do not even recognize that they have been living their whole lives as a second-hander. They live much like a leach; they survive by sucking the blood of their victims. Closely related to this, second-handers will strive to make themselves so involved into other people’s lives that they forget to live for themselves, but live it for other people. A second-hander will work their whole life trying to impress the people around them. Second-handers, by no means, do anything true to their uniqueness. They do everything for the one sole purpose of pleasing the...