Dominique Francon Character Analysis

“If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted—I’d have to depend on the whole world. Everything has strings leading to everything else. We’re all so tied together. We’re all in a net, the net is waiting, and we’re pushed into it by a single desire. You want a thing and it’s precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can’t know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is ready, and you’re afraid of them all. And you cringe and crawl and you beg and you accept them—just so they’ll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept.”

Roark awakened in the morning and thought that last night had been like a point reached, like a stop in the movement of his life. He was moving forward for the sake of such stops; like the moments when he had walked through the half-finished Heller house; like last night. In some unstated way, last night had been what building was to him; in some quality of reaction within him, in what it gave to his consciousness of existence.

“You know I hate you, Roark. I hate you for what you are, for wanting you, for having to want you. I’m going to fight you—and I’m going to destroy you […]. I’m going to pray that you can’t be destroyed—I tell you this, too—even though I believe in nothing and have nothing to pray to. But I will fight to block every step you take. I will fight to tear every chance you want away from you. I will hurt you through the only thing that can hurt you—through your work. I will fight to starve you, to strangle you on the things you won’t be able to reach. I have done it to you today—and that is why I shall sleep with you tonight.”

“What you’re thinking is much worse than the truth. I don’t believe it matters to me—that they’re going to destroy it. Maybe it hurts so much that I don’t even know I’m hurt. But I don’t think so. If you want to carry it for my sake, don’t carry more than I do. I’m not capable of suffering completely. I never have. It goes only down to a certain point and then it stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it’s not really pain. You mustn’t look like that.”

“Where does it stop?”

“Where I can think of nothing and feel nothing except that I designed that temple. I built it. Nothing else can seem very important.”

“I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air. […] I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself—and so you would not love me. To say ‘I love you’ one must know first how to say the ‘I’. The kind of surrender I could have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. […] I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the battle you’ve chosen.”

“You’re not here, Dominique. You’re not alive. Where’s your I?”

“Where’s yours, Peter?” she asked quietly.

He sat still, his eyes wide. […]

“You’re beginning to see, aren’t you, Peter? Shall I make it clearer. You’ve never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want to show it. You wanted an act to help your act—a beautiful, complicated act, all twists, trimmings and words. All words. […] You wanted a mirror. People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too. You know, like the senseless infinity you get from two mirrors facing each other across a narrow passage. […] Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes.”

“Do you know what you’re actually in love with? Integrity. The impossible. […] like a work of art. That’s the only field where it can be found—art. But you want it in the flesh. […] Well, you see, I’ve never had any integrity. […] I hate the conception of it. […] I’m perfectly indifferent to slugs like Ellsworth Toohey or my friend Alvah, and quite willing to leave them in peace. But just let me see a man of slightly higher dimension—and I’ve got to make a sort of Toohey out of him. […]”

“Why?”

[…]

“Power, Dominique. The only thing I ever wanted. To know that there’s not a man living whom I can’t force to do—anything. Anything I choose. The man I couldn’t break would destroy me. But I’ve spent years finding out how safe I am.”

“I like to see a man standing at the foot of a skyscraper,” he said. “It makes him no bigger than an ant—isn’t that the correct bromide for the occasion? The God-damn fools! It’s man who made it—the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. It doesn’t dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals his true dimensions to the world. What we love about these buildings, Dominique, is the creative faculty, the heroic in man.”

“Do you love the heroic in man, Gail?”

“I love to think of it. I don’t believe it.”

“If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted—I’d have to depend on the whole world. Everything has strings leading to everything else. We’re all so tied together. We’re all in a net, the net is waiting, and we’re pushed into it by a single desire. You want a thing and it’s precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can’t know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is ready, and you’re afraid of them all. And you cringe and crawl and you beg and you accept them—just so they’ll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept.”

Roark awakened in the morning and thought that last night had been like a point reached, like a stop in the movement of his life. He was moving forward for the sake of such stops; like the moments when he had walked through the half-finished Heller house; like last night. In some unstated way, last night had been what building was to him; in some quality of reaction within him, in what it gave to his consciousness of existence.

“You know I hate you, Roark. I hate you for what you are, for wanting you, for having to want you. I’m going to fight you—and I’m going to destroy you […]. I’m going to pray that you can’t be destroyed—I tell you this, too—even though I believe in nothing and have nothing to pray to. But I will fight to block every step you take. I will fight to tear every chance you want away from you. I will hurt you through the only thing that can hurt you—through your work. I will fight to starve you, to strangle you on the things you won’t be able to reach. I have done it to you today—and that is why I shall sleep with you tonight.”

“What you’re thinking is much worse than the truth. I don’t believe it matters to me—that they’re going to destroy it. Maybe it hurts so much that I don’t even know I’m hurt. But I don’t think so. If you want to carry it for my sake, don’t carry more than I do. I’m not capable of suffering completely. I never have. It goes only down to a certain point and then it stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it’s not really pain. You mustn’t look like that.”

“Where does it stop?”

“Where I can think of nothing and feel nothing except that I designed that temple. I built it. Nothing else can seem very important.”

“I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air. […] I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself—and so you would not love me. To say ‘I love you’ one must know first how to say the ‘I’. The kind of surrender I could have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. […] I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the battle you’ve chosen.”

“You’re not here, Dominique. You’re not alive. Where’s your I?”

“Where’s yours, Peter?” she asked quietly.

He sat still, his eyes wide. […]

“You’re beginning to see, aren’t you, Peter? Shall I make it clearer. You’ve never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want to show it. You wanted an act to help your act—a beautiful, complicated act, all twists, trimmings and words. All words. […] You wanted a mirror. People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too. You know, like the senseless infinity you get from two mirrors facing each other across a narrow passage. […] Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes.”

“Do you know what you’re actually in love with? Integrity. The impossible. […] like a work of art. That’s the only field where it can be found—art. But you want it in the flesh. […] Well, you see, I’ve never had any integrity. […] I hate the conception of it. […] I’m perfectly indifferent to slugs like Ellsworth Toohey or my friend Alvah, and quite willing to leave them in peace. But just let me see a man of slightly higher dimension—and I’ve got to make a sort of Toohey out of him. […]”

“Why?”

[…]

“Power, Dominique. The only thing I ever wanted. To know that there’s not a man living whom I can’t force to do—anything. Anything I choose. The man I couldn’t break would destroy me. But I’ve spent years finding out how safe I am.”

“I like to see a man standing at the foot of a skyscraper,” he said. “It makes him no bigger than an ant—isn’t that the correct bromide for the occasion? The God-damn fools! It’s man who made it—the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. It doesn’t dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals his true dimensions to the world. What we love about these buildings, Dominique, is the creative faculty, the heroic in man.”

“Do you love the heroic in man, Gail?”

“I love to think of it. I don’t believe it.”