Selfishness In Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead features two main characters, Peter Keating and Howard Roark, who are selfish in their own ways. While Peter Keating is willing to completely sacrifice his own beliefs in order to cater to others, he does so in order to make money and increase his position. Howard Roark is selfish in that he will not sway from his beliefs and decisions, even if it would benefit others. Despite being expressed in two entirely different ways, selfish is a characteristic which they both possess. Roark openly values selfishness and egoism over altruism, and he is correct to do so. Even though being selfish is not necessarily a good thing, it is better to be selfish than to be entirely altruistic. Doing things for other people is wonderful,

People are not permanent; they are not certain. People change, grow, and leave. There is no way to ensure that the person you take care of, the person you sacrifice everything for, will stay. This is something that Peter’s girlfriend Katie experienced firsthand in The Fountainhead. She was entirely selfless and altruistic. She did whatever Peter or her uncle asked of her. She took care of them both, went along with what they wanted when they wanted, and set aside her own desires to follow their directions time after time. When Peter asked her when she was going to college, she replied, “Oh… Well… well, you see, I don’t think Uncle approves of the idea. I told him how I’d always planned to go and that I’d work my own way through, but he seems to think it’s not for me.” (Rand 59). She openly admits that she’d always wanted to go to college. She was willing to work her way through it; she wanted to be independent. But as soon as someone else disagreed, she gave up with her own wishes to focus on what they wanted instead. This altruism prevented her from having a future of her own, a future she could control, a future in which she could have been incredibly happy. Later, she requests she and Peter get married quickly. He agrees only to abruptly change his mind the next day. She does not push, goes along with his plan to wait, and ignores her own wishes once again. She and Peter do not end up married; Peter abandons her and marries Dominique instead. She kept disregarding what mattered to her in order to make Peter happy, and then Peter brushed her aside like she was of no importance at all. This was something he had always done; he would come and go, in and out of her life when he pleased, without even considering how it affected her. She was too selfless to fight for what she wanted, to defend herself, or give him a hard time and he ended up leaving her alone. Katie’s selflessness did not benefit her; it