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Ayn Rand's Heroes: Between and Beyond Good and Evil Robert L Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 Ayn Rand's Heroes: Between and Beyond Good and Evil Robert L. Powell II Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES AYN RAND’S HEROES: BETWEEN AND BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL By Robert L. Powell II A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2006 The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Robert L. Powell defended on October 30, 2006. _________________________________ Douglas Fowler Professor Directing Dissertation __________________________________ William Cloonan Outside Committee Member __________________________________ Caroline “Kay” Picart Committee Member ___________________________________ John Fenstermaker Committee Member Approved: ________________________________________ Name of Department Chair, Department of English ________________________________________ Name of Dean, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii Dedicated to my lifelong mentor, teacher and friend. To my grandfather, the late Dr. C.E. Walker, who saved my life and helped to instill three things within me which no man can ever take away—knowledge, wisdom and courage. iii ACKN OWLEDGEMENTS In Ayn Rand’s postscript at the end of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, she claimed that no one helped her towards success in her life achievements. In no way does the same hold true for me. First and foremost, I would like to thank God for giving me the talents and abilities that I do have. A heartfelt and profound thank you goes out to Dr. Douglas Fowler and Dr. Stephen Armstrong, true friends and mentors to me in every sense of the words. I would also like to thank Dr. Caroline "Kay" Picart, Dr. William Cloonan and Dr. John Fenster- maker for agreeing to serve on my committee and for all their pro- fessional help and guidance. A grateful word of acknowledgement goes out to the Florida State University School of Arts and Sciences for its English Teaching Assistant Summer Stipends. Without the stipend I received in the Summer of 2005, this timely completion of my dissertation would not have been possible. I would also like to thank my mother, Dr. Deidre D. Powell and the love of my life, Felicia A. Storey for their love, motivation and inspiration. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………vi PREMISE/INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………….1 1. THE FOUNTAINHEAD AS ART AND ROMANTIC LITERATURE…………………….9 2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD AS PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE: EXISTENTIALISM AND MARXISM…………………………………………………………………….......…………..56 3. THE FOUNTAINHEAD AS POLITICAL LITERATURE: AYN RAND’S OBJECTIVISM vs. GEORGE ORWELL’S SKEPTICISM……………………………….......................................85 4. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE’S SUPERMAN IN AYN RAND’S HEROES. THE FOUNTAINHEAD’S TRUE HERO: GAIL WYNAND-- THE FOUNTAINHEAD’S TRUE VILLAIN: DOMINIQUE FRANCON……………………………………………………….116 5. RAND’S LITERARY LEGACY: WRITERS POSSIBLY INFLUENCED BY RAND’S FICTION………………………………………………………………………………………158 6. THE AMERICAN DREAM OF SUCCESS, WEALTH AND EXCESS: THE RANDIAN HERO IN TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE…..........194 7. GREED IS GOOD: THE RANDIAN HERO IN POP CULTURE……………………........230 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………..251 NOTES………………………………………………………………………………………...255 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………………283 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH………………………………………………………………….301 v ABSTRACT This comparative study examines Ayn Rand’s fiction in relation to Twentieth century literature and culture. Despite its linguistic potential, The Fountainhead is not good art and does not represent romantic fiction in the tradition of Victor Hugo or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Artistically speaking, it truly represents Rand's own reactionary type of prose which rebels against literary movements she hated such as naturalism and modernism. In bringing the Russian tradition of ideological fiction to America, Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is really a right-wing form of Existentialism. This philosophy was originated in fiction by Rand’s beloved Fyodor Dostoevsky. Many ideas of her fiction are similar to Marxism. Ayn Rand and George Orwell both endured shocking life experiences which shaped their ideas and fiction. Where Rand learned anti-communism and extreme capitalism, George Orwell learned skepticism. Rand’s most skeptical heroes, Gail Wynand, Dominique Francon, Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden are the most realistic and interesting of her canon. Rand’s The Fountainhead is a blend of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of the Superman and the typical American capitalist hero. In the tradition of Theodore Dreiser’s Cowperwood trilogy, Gail Wynand, her most Nietzschean character, is Rand’s true hero and Dominique is her true villain. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged don't fit easily into any specific literary genres. Therefore, popular writers, such as Mickey Spillane and Edna Ferber may have been influenced by Rand. Furthermore, similar tendencies of Rand’s work can also be seen in choice literature novels of Simone deBeauvoir, Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates. As a novel of capitalist heroes, The Fountainhead sits among an unappreciated group of works by the literary establishment which should be understood, if not embraced. The 1943 work portrays capitalist heroes such as Mark Twain’s Hank Morgan and Jack London’s Burning Daylight without their loveable ‘common man’ aspect. Rand’s capitalists are rebel anti-heroes with the American idea, that, in pursuit of their excessive selfish desires-- the sky’s the limit. Randian heroes—anti-heroes of productive work, have continually re-emerged in American Popular Culture. Rand’s fiction is popular because it’s entertaining soap opera trash that Americans love. Loveable common man tycoons such as Bill Gates and Sam Walton have turned into the anti-heroic Don King and Ken Lay. Anti-heroic icons such as J.R. Ewing of Dallas and Gordon Gekko of the film Wall Street, in the Randian tradition, show us the ugly but true side of American capitalist culture that is important for us to expose, admit and examine. vi PREMISE/INTRODUCTION Throughout this study, I aim to examine how alternate versions of Ayn Rand’s heroes continually re-emerge throughout Twentieth Century British and American literature and pop culture and ponder the possible implications of that emergence. I will also compare and contrast key characters and ideas in The Fountainhead with those of contemporary literature and pop culture to show how the content of Rand’s novel is artistically, politically and philosophically similar in construction but different in stance to typical twentieth century literary tendencies in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Furthermore, I hope to show how Rand’s work opposes the typical literature and pop culture theme “excess causes downfall” to demonstrate an unpopular but accurate side of the American imagination—we all want to strive for some version of the success, wealth and excess-- or greed. Perhaps we all strive to be like Ronald Reagan and the robber-barons of Enron, Jay Gatsby and George W. Bush—all modern day versions of Ayn Rand’s heroes who are incarnations of the “American” dream. The self- enlargement of this hero is a dark but spellbinding super-nova at the center of the American firmament. Rand’s work carries on literary traditions of nineteenth century Europe. Her work shows the influence of French and German romanticism and Russian philosophical literature. According to Gene H. Bell-Villada, “Along with her Nietzsche-through-Russian eyes, Rand poured her potent American brew into a very Russian vessel: the novel of ideas. The grand debates that breathe life into The Brothers Karamazov have long moved and excited many a college youth, and Rand indeed acknowledged in Dostoevsky a kindred literary [if not philosophic] spirit.”1 Most great works of literature, such as Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle teach the reader and relate the work to real life with mostly pessimistic portrayals and narrative. Rand constructs these same types of traditions in her fiction but instead of teaching, she preaches to the reader to strive to achieve exaggerated positions of greatness with extremely optimistic portrayals and narrative. Artists like Ford, Salinger and Steinbeck are skeptical while Rand is empowering. When discussing the nature of literary art, Rand states, “art does not teach--it shows, it displays the full concretized reality of the final goal.”2 Therefore, what Rand shows us with her “characters as ideas” is more important than what we learn from either the story itself or the way 1 it is told. “Lovers of Rand fiction . admire the work for its contents, not its art.”3 In stating the purpose of her novels, Rand goes on to say: The motive and purpose of my writing is the projection of an ideal man. The portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate literary goal, as an end in itself—to which any didactic, intellectual or philosophical values contained in a novel are only the means. .My purpose, first cause and prime mover is the portrayal of Howard Roark or John Galt or Hank Rearden or Francisco d’Anconia as an end in himself-not as a means to any further end. Which, incidentally, is the greatest value I could ever offer a reader (The Romantic Manifesto 162). Although these portrayed ideals are too extreme, Rand’s heroic Nietzschean idea of “greatness in man” is beneficial in that, if taken in moderation, this optimistic hope can motivate us to strive for success and happiness as the heroes of our own lives. Since 1943, alternate versions of the Randian hero continue to emerge in both twentieth century literature and pop culture. Rand’s fiction, portrayed through her rebellious heroes, is bothersome, controversial and nerve striking because it represents the noisy, industrialized and unnatural city aspect of the American imagination.
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