Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of sexual assault and rape and mentions suicide.

In 1922, Howard Roark is expelled from the Architectural School of the Stanton Institute of Technology for repeatedly refusing to design his assignments in established historical styles. After swimming in a lake, he returns to the home of Mrs. Keating, with whom he has been staying for the past three years since he has no family of his own. He is summoned to a meeting with the Institute’s dean, but he attends only after finishing his work on an architectural sketch. The dean informs Roark that although many professors were adamant that he be expelled, several—including the professors of engineering and math—fought for him. Roark is unofficially offered the opportunity to be readmitted to the school the following year, provided that he changes his attitude toward the study of architecture. Roark refuses, explaining that he has learned all that the school can teach him. The dean is offended; he believes that innovation is an entirely collective process, and he also asserts that all the important architectural advancements have already been made. (Throughout the novel, people who agree with these ideas in any

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