Howard Roark is expelled from the Stanton Institute of Technology for refusing to design his assignments in established historical styles.

Roark takes a job as a draftsman for the obscure but admired Modernist architect Henry Cameron in New York.

Cameron's failing health forces him to retire; Roark closes his office, burns Cameron's papers, and refuses a reference letter.

Austen Heller fires Snyde and hires Roark directly after recognizing the perfection of Roark's original sketch for his house.

Keating uses blackmail to frighten Heyer into a fatal stroke, then wins the Cosmo-Slotnick Building competition using Roark's help.

Roark refuses to alter his design for a lucrative bank building, closes his office, and takes a job at a Connecticut quarry.

Roark breaks into Dominique Francon's bedroom at night and violently rapes her; she feels sexual pleasure for the first time.

Toohey manipulates the guilt-ridden Hopton Stoddard into commissioning Roark to build a temple to the human spirit with full creative control.

Toohey leads a public campaign condemning the Stoddard Temple; Roark is sued for malpractice, loses the case, and the building is remodeled at his expense.

Dominique arrives at Keating's apartment and proposes marriage; they drive to Connecticut and marry immediately that same night.

During a cruise on Wynand's yacht, he proposes marriage to Dominique; she accepts out of hatred for his newspaper.

Wynand commissions Roark to design a home for himself and Dominique; Roark agrees on condition that his designs cannot be altered.

Keating begs Roark to design the Cordtland Homes government housing project; Roark agrees only if his plans are followed without any deviation.

Roark discovers his Cordtland Homes designs have been fundamentally altered and detonates the entire completed project with dynamite.

Roark is acquitted at trial after speaking in his own defense; Wynand divorces Dominique, and she marries Roark.

The Fountainhead follows Howard Roark from his expulsion from architecture school to his eventual triumph as a celebrated builder of integrity. After struggling to find work under the ailing Modernist Cameron, Roark finally earns his first commission from Austen Heller and opens his own office, only to close it again when he refuses to compromise a lucrative bank design. His time at a Connecticut quarry leads to a charged encounter with Dominique Francon, and their relationship entangles him in the schemes of Ellsworth Toohey, who destroys the Stoddard Temple Roark builds with full creative freedom. The story builds to its climax when Roark detonates the Cordtland Homes project after his precise designs are violated, and he defends himself at trial with an impassioned speech on individualism, winning acquittal and the hand of Dominique.

The rise and vindication of Howard Roark.

Peter Keating graduates top of his class and chooses a position at Guy Francon's prestigious New York firm over a Paris scholarship.

Toohey publishes 'Sermons in Stone,' becoming a celebrated authority on architecture by making uneducated readers feel like experts.

Keating secretly proposes to Catherine Halsey, who accepts joyfully, but he asks her to keep their engagement hidden from everyone.

Dominique Francon publishes a harsh public critique of one of Keating's recent house designs in her column for The Banner.

Cameron summons Roark to his bedside for a final visit, tells him his life was worth the struggle, and dies.

The sculptor Steven Mallory fires a shot at Toohey in a failed assassination attempt and receives only a suspended sentence.

At Mrs. Holcombe's salon, Dominique meets Roark in a social setting and recognizes him as the quarry worker who raped her.

Roark tracks down a fearful and broken Mallory in his squalid flat and commissions him to sculpt the Stoddard Temple's centerpiece.

Keating's plan to elope with Catherine collapses when Dominique arrives at his apartment the same evening and proposes marriage to him.

Toohey arranges for Dominique to meet Wynand; she explicitly offers herself to him in exchange for securing Keating the Stoneridge commission.

Wynand pays Keating a large sum to consent to divorcing Dominique; Keating agrees and drinks heavily to suppress his conflicted feelings.

During a private yacht cruise, Roark and Wynand discuss the destruction caused by second-handers and the supreme importance of independence.

Toohey interrogates a broken Keating until he confesses to using Roark's designs and surrenders the signed contract proving their secret arrangement.

Toohey publishes an anti-Roark editorial in The Banner without Wynand's permission; Wynand fires him, and Toohey's supporters immediately launch a strike.

Wynand permanently closes The Banner rather than continue publishing without integrity, ending Toohey's long career at the paper.

While Roark's main struggle drives the novel, a rich web of secondary events charts the fates of those around him. Peter Keating's meteoric rise through Francon's firm, built on charm and manipulation rather than talent, contrasts sharply with the quiet suffering of Catherine Halsey, the woman he abandons. Ellsworth Toohey cultivates influence across artistic and social circles, surviving an assassination attempt and building a network of dependent followers, while Dominique's alliance with him to destroy Roark slowly gives way to her growing entanglement with Gail Wynand. The novel's final movement hinges on Toohey's overreach at The Banner, which triggers a labor strike and forces Wynand to choose between his paper and his integrity, ending in his permanent closure of the publication he built his empire upon.

The supporting lives shaped by Roark's presence.

The Institute's dean informally offers Roark readmission if he conforms to tradition; Roark refuses and accepts his expulsion on his own terms.

Cameron calls Roark to his office and tries to fire him to spare him future suffering; Roark refuses to leave and Cameron concedes.

Roark is fired from Snyde's firm after boldly redrawing his original design directly over the boss's approved composite sketch.

Roark opens his first small office and refuses to join the Architects' Guild of America despite warnings about his professional prospects.

Dominique engineers a pretext to summon Roark to her home, then strikes him across the face with a branch for mocking her desire.

Dominique returns to New York and tells Toohey that Roark should have died rather than create something so great in an imperfect world.

Toohey and Dominique forge a secret alliance against Roark; Dominique steals the Sutton commission and visits Roark to boast of the damage she caused.

Roark, Mallory, Dominique, and Mike spend many evenings together at the Stoddard Temple construction site, bonding over shared values.

Dominique testifies at the Stoddard Temple trial with a speech that praises the building's greatness while demanding its demolition to protect it from an unworthy society.

Dominique sleeps with Roark on the night of her marriage to Keating and explains that she has chosen to live in shame rather than see Roark degraded.

Wynand presents Roark with a contract binding him to mediocre work; Roark calls his bluff by sketching a hideous design, and Wynand immediately surrenders.

Keating runs into a cold and distant Catherine for the first time since abandoning her and realizes their entire connection is completely dead.

Wynand visits Roark before the trial and admits his newspaper defense is harming Roark's reputation; Roark urges him to fight on for his own sake.

Toohey reveals his true purpose to Keating: the desire for absolute power through the deliberate destruction of every independent and capable mind.

Wynand capitulates to the striking workers and publishes papers denouncing Roark, realizing he has never truly escaped his childhood powerlessness.

Beneath the novel's surface action lies a series of pivotal decisions and discoveries that determine the fates of every major character. Roark's earliest choices — refusing readmission on conformist terms, refusing to leave Cameron's side, and refusing the safety of architectural compromise — establish the unshakable code he lives by. His relationship with Dominique is defined by a succession of confrontations and confessions, from her deliberate summons at the quarry to her paradoxical testimony at the Stoddard trial and her choice to marry Keating as an act of self-punishment. The novel's moral core is exposed in Wynand's failed attempt to break Roark's integrity, Toohey's chilling revelation of his true purpose to a broken Keating, and Wynand's ultimate capitulation to the striking workers — a moment that reveals the limits of a man who could not relinquish power even to save his own soul.