Read: Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

Title: The Fountainhead
Author: Ayn Rand
Publisher: Signet

In this fiction book, the author, Ayn Rand, explores and presents her vision of the following themes:
1) Independence: Thinking for oneself, Judging for oneself, Making Decisions based solely on one's own thinking and judgement.

2) Second-handers

3) The morality of individualism

4) Creativity

5) Central purpose: In The Fountainhead, the protagonist, Howard Roark is motivated by the intellectual challenge of solving architectural problems and the artistic drive to create structures of beauty.

It appears that the theme of independence, individualism, creativity and central purpose could be related to the concept of "integrity" which was stated in page 313 of this edition as "the ability to stand by an idea". The protagonist, Howard Roark, was a representation of the 'ideal man' and a person of integrity.

I learnt that the author has eventually used the title to highlight that it is firsthand thinking of history's great creative minds that is the fountainhead of human progress. A book that urges me to think about what could the ideal man be and what it means to think independently for oneself.

SparkNotes Editors.(2002) SparkNote on The Fountainhead. has put up summaries and analysis of The Fountainhead. These can be available here: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/fountainhead/