| Term Paper Title | A Tragic Character |
| # of Words | 478 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 1.91 |
A Tragic Character
Trish Griffing
AP English
Oct. 5, 1998
Objectivism, a philosophy on life created by Ayn Rand, states that “man
must live for his own sake, with the achievement of his own happiness as the
highest moral purpose of his life.” In her novels, Ayn Rand illustrates men at
different levels of perfection according to her philosophy. Ayn Rand’s first novel,
The Fountainhead, contains many excellent examples of men that are not ideal
because they are not happy with themselves. The most tragic character in The
Fountainhead is Gail Wynand, a great newspaper publisher. Wynand is the most
tragic character in the novel because he is not happy with his accomplishments,
he makes himself suffer unnecessarily, and he is ashamed of himself.
Gail Wynand is not happy with his accomplishments. He is a self-made
man that came from the gutter and had to fight his way to the top by being
ruthless and persistent. Wynand has the potential to be a great man, but he lets
himself conform to society when he opens his first newspaper, the Banner. The
Banner gives people what they want; murder, arson, rape, and corruption. When
Wynand realizes that he is not happy with his accomplishments he decides to
destroy men that do have integrity. Wynand makes Dwight Carson, a young writer
devoted to the conviction of “the individual against the masses”, write a column
in the Banner about “the superiority of th...Read entire document
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