The Juxtaposition of Dominique Francon and Dagny Taggart in Ayn Rand’s Works

By Armando Simón (June 2018)

Roofs No. 1, Nicolas Jolly

 

 

The Jerry Springer Show, Entertainment Tonight and others.

 

However, where the Dominique character becomes particularly repugnant is when she meets Roark and sees his creations which take her breath away in admiration. But, instead of helping him and promoting his work, she does the complete opposite, steering clients away from him and toward a second-rate architect (Keating). Her rationale for doing so is that human beings do not deserve Roark and cannot appreciate his creations since most cannot tell the difference in quality between a Roark and a Keating. As for Roark himself, he inexplicably does not resent her actions, but finds it at times amusing, at times a challenge. On top of this, throughout her activities against him she regularly sleeps with him.

 

At one point in the novel, Roark is commissioned to build a temple to the spirit of mankind, that is, the heroic in mankind, an architectural Eroica, as it were. The temple is built and subsequently mutilated by others and the original architect is lambasted for his supposed atheism, whereupon Dominique decides to commit spiritual suicide by marrying, of all persons, Keating. When this fails to do the job, she ups the ante by dumping Keating and marrying someone even more contemptible to her, Wynand. Throughout, her character’s main philosophy seems to be that of renunciation.

 

The Fountainhead has often been said to be in a sense the prequel to Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, a gargantuan work so characteristic of other Russian novels as to size and constellation of characters (Rand herself was a Russian émigré). In this latter work, the protagonist is Dagny Taggart, the head (and inheritor) of a vast railway empire who is desperately trying to keep it together at a time when society seems to be heading for a colossal smashup at breakneck speed. What Dominique Francon viewed with disdain has now become leprous and metastasized and has completely saturated society at every conceivable level and in every single field of endeavor, no matter how elevated, or how modest: politics, business, music, art, farming, mechanical ability, cooking, etc. Mediocrities, particularly vicious mediocrities, abound and proliferate and their parasitism and ineptitude are alternatively praised, excused, or blamed on others. As for the rest of the countries in the world, they have descended into a sort of Dark Ages, with the United States soon to follow in their footsteps. As Taggart repeatedly attempts in a Sisyphusian manner to fix problems, avert catastrophes, and outmaneuver the parasites that are constantly attempting to hamstring her and her competent colleagues, she ultimately becomes aware of a conspiracy. This conspiracy is manifested by systematically persuading the creative, competent, intelligent members at all levels of society to go secretly on strike, to drop out of society. They renounce the culture as it now stands. As a result of their (in)actions, society steadily deteriorates at a faster rate. Far from joining them, Taggart only works that much harder in keeping it all together until there comes a point at the end of the novel where she finally gives up and joins the conspiracy headed by the mysterious engineer, John Galt.

 

Simply put, Dominque Francon is a defeatist in combatting evil and mediocrity while Howard Roark is a fighter, Dagny Taggart is a fighter though John Galt is a defeatist. Rand sees both sides of the equation as admirable in her characters. This is the paradox. The paradox is somewhat attenuated by the rationale for the defeatism of Francon and Galt. And what is further curious is that these contradictions were never noticed or voiced by Rand or her followers.

 

 

Yet, regardless of the personal detail, I believe that this literary paradox is one that will remain forever unresolved. And the fact remains that while the Francon character is contemptible, the Taggart character is admirable, yet Rand expected the reader to have an equal regard for both characters. That expectation was irrational. And that, of course, is a conclusion that she would have fulminated against.

 

References

Branden, Nathaniel. 1989 Judgement Day. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Heller, Anne. 2009 Ayn Rand and the World She Made. New York: Random House.

Rand, Ayn. 1936 We the Living. New York: MacMillan.

Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House.

 

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Armando Simón is a trilingual native of Cuba, a retired forensic psychologist, and author of A Cuban from Kansas, The Only Red Star I Liked Was a Starfish, Orlando Stories, Wichita Women, and The Cult of Suicide and Other Sci-Fi Stories. They can be obtained at Amazon, Lulu, and Barnes & Noble.

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