irenesme Posted January 20, 2009 Report Share Posted January 20, 2009 I was planning on doing my extended essay on Ayn Rand possibly on either her longer work The Fountainhead, her short novel Anthem, or a combination of both. However, I am having trouble picking a topic that I would be able to write a whole Extended Essay on? Some of my ideas: - Ayn Rand's portrayal of the idea "survival of the fittest" or "individual versus the majority" - Relating her works to her life and how her works condemn the principles of communism - Unconventional love in The Fountainhead - more on how Dominique set out to destroy Roark in the Fountainhead, refusing to give in to emotion, etc. - Character's pitting themselves against the protagonist in The Fountainhead: (i.e. Domique vs Roark, Toohey vs Roark, Peter Keating vs Roark) Do any of these ideas work? Any other suggestions? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vvi Posted January 20, 2009 Report Share Posted January 20, 2009 The one about her themes "survival of the fittest" or "individual versus the majority" or relating her works to her life and how her works condemn the principles of communism sound good. The 4th one would be ok too. You could definitely find examples of other authors that have similar styles/themes and use them to strengthen points in your argument. The communism one could maybe be rephrased into something like "How and why does Ayn Rand condemn the principles of communism in her two novels ______ and ________?" Two novels is good to write an EE on. 1 risks being too boring and not enough material, 3 and over is again too much within 4000 words. I would say no to the 3rd one. Love story analysis things are sort of overdone. No matter how "unconventional" it is, it's probably already been done. I did one on how Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennett were unconventional heroines at the time in which they were written in. Imagine how many people write EE's on Romeo and Juliet's tragic relationship. Love in EE's is an overused theme as well. The one thing that will probably work for you is that those books seem original. Not overused or too modern. I haven't heard of them (so maybe I'm an idiot if they are actually bestsellers), so the examiner may actually be interested in reading yours out of the 500 that he gets to mark. And that's a good thing. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
irenesme Posted January 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 I think I got a topic. The book is structured into four sections each pertaining to a different character: Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey, Gail Wynand, and Howard Roark. When I read the novel it seemed as though she was building up from characters showing the people she hated the most and slowly built it up to the man whom she saw as perfection, Howard Roark. I was thinking about writing my EE on character contrasts. What are the imperfections in each character and how detestable are these characteristics to the author? In comparison, how does Howard Roark contast all of the other three characters to make him the "ideal" man. Hopefully, this topic will work out. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperbole Posted January 29, 2009 Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 Just a sort of a warning: with four characters to analyse, you will need an extremely good structure or a twist to the research question in order to be able to keep the 4000-word limit. Consider choosing a specific aspect, rather than going through everything for every character. Reading about your topic, I think it seems very interesting, but the red light on the word limit thing started flashing immediately... I myself chose two works and three "aspects" in the authors' argumentation to write about, and ended up at around 3860, so I'm really glad I narrowed the topic down a lot from the beginning. Good luck! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
irenesme Posted January 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 Is it usually advised to do a comparative study? Because with my topic I think that I definietly would be able to reach the limit with what I am trying to cover just in the novel The Foutainhead. The focus that I am going to try to analyze the characters from is whether they are able to act as an individual and not through others. Peter Keating is completely mediocre and leeches off of the ideas of others. He does what others tell him and by conforming to the masses he achieves success. Ellsworth Toohey destroys others through a column he writes. He control and shapes public opinion and through this he tries to destroy individuality and enshrine mediocrity. Gail Wynand was born with an innate talent, yet he also conforms to the masses and uses his talent to control others. Howard Roark, on the other hand, is compleletly independent and lives for only himself and his own creativity. He never compromises his vision. So, I am trying to analyze the characters to fit into the theme of being an individual or conforming to the majority. Does it seem like too much to cover and will end up exceeding the word limit? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
irenesme Posted February 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 Just wanted to actually post my topic to get input. Topic: In Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, she aims to portray her main character, Howard Roark, as the perfect and ideal man. Contrasting him to the other main characters in the novel, Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey, and Gail Wynand, what can we infer as the features of Rand’s “ideal man” and how do these other three characters fall short of the ideal that only Howard Roark meets? Does it seem to verbiose? Too narrow? Not enough books? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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