Character Analyses

Ellsworth Toohey

Toohey is a power-seeker. In various ways, he attempts to gain control over the lives of other
men. At the personal level, he acquires a legion of followers who blindly obey his every
command. Toohey deceives his victims by posturing as a humanitarian, but the code he
preaches—that of self-sacrifice—is utterly destructive. Under the guise of offering spiritual
guidance, Toohey convinces his followers to give up the things most important in their lives—
their values. He tells them that virtue lies in selflessness, in the renunciation of personal
desires, and that they must exist for the sake of others. He succeeds with a number of weak-
willed individuals, who then surrender the things and persons most precious to them. But
when a man gives up his values, he necessarily gives up that with which he formed them—his
own thinking. His life is then empty, devoid of meaning and purpose, and he is incapable of
internal direction. He needs external guidance. Toohey is never too busy to give them his full
attention; he is always there to tell them what to do.

At the personal level, Toohey is a cult leader of a type such as Jim Jones, David Koresh, and
Sun Myung Moon. He gains a private army of unquestioning followers, some of whom occupy
positions of authority. He controls the souls of various government bureaucrats, of numerous
Wynand employees and of millionaires like Hopton Stoddard and Mitchell Layton. It is through
and by means of his victims that Toohey—like a virus—gains survival. Because he creates and
contributes nothing, Toohey can exist only as a parasite. In this regard, he is the perfect
antipode to Roark’s creative genius.

But Toohey’s power-seeking is not limited to his cult activities. He is the one character in the
story who has political goals. Toohey seeks to establish a collectivist dictatorship in America.
Because he is a Marxist intellectual preaching communism to the masses, he desires to control
editorial policy of the Wynand papers. With The Banner as a platform, Toohey hopes to spread
the ideas necessary to establish a totalitarian state in America.

Toohey knows that a Fascist or Communist state requires a citizenry willing to obey. He can
establish a dictatorship only if the majority of individuals are willing to give up personal
autonomy—to surrender their minds to a leader. The Roarks of the world will not do it. But the
Keatings will—in exchange for approval. Toohey understands that Keating, in order to be liked,
will yield his thinking and values to others. Just as Keating fawns over professors, employers,
critics—anyone in authority—so he will toady to the political leaders. Toohey’s conclusion is
simple: his plan requires many Keatings and no Roarks. This is the two-pronged goal that he
attempts to reach: destroy the independent thinkers like Roark, and, by convincing individuals
to surrender their judgment and values, turn them into followers like Keating. A dictator
requires a flock of sheep; he cannot hold power over a citizenry of independent men.

Toohey has a clear vision of his role in the collectivist state. He himself is not the brute of
physical force who gains dominance by unleashing a reign of terror. His role, rather, is to be
the intellectual advisor behind the throne. The brute will hold physical power over the masses,
and Toohey will hold spiritual power over the brute. Toohey is a behind-the-scenes puppet
master, who surreptitiously wields the real power—and this will be his place in the totalitarian
state he seeks.