Proud Man Essay

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“Proud Man” Howard Roark is the center of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. He is an unusual character, being different than most. This book is written to display the individualistic mind versus the non-individualistic mind. Howard Roark is seen as the outsider in this wonderful book. Howard Roark should indeed be considered an example of Aristotle’s “proud man” for many examples. “The proud man, then, is an extreme in respect of the greatness of his claims, but a mean in respect of the rightness of them; for he claims what is accordance with his merits, while the others go to excess or fall short” (Nicomachean Ethics). This basically describes Roark a hundred percent in many ways. Roark doesn’t want to be like other people, he would rather like to live his life the way he would want to in The Fountainhead. In this book, Roark is portrayed as an outsider but in Aristotle’s eyes he is a proud man. Aristotle claims that honors and dishonors are the objects with respect to which the proud man is as he should be. To me this means that a proud man isn’t afraid to be who he truly is. He also states that the vain man goes to comparison with his own merits, but doesn’t exceed the proud man’s claims. This compares Roark from Peter Keating and all of the other characters in The Fountainhead. Roark is seen as the individual person in the book while Peter Keating is seen as the majority. Roark does what he feels he should do throughout the book. In the beginning, Roark is expelled from school because he feels he shouldn’t have to not be himself for any person who stands in his way. I feel like this is the dominating and starting point of the whole book. This shows that regardless of how higher the person is to Roark, he will not fall down or break who he truly is. On the other hand, Peter Keating is seen as the great guy. He is portrayed as being one of the best of his class.

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