Gail Wynand Quote

[MoralParadise]

What does it mean? I think it is an example of Gail not being able to control someone, and being frustrated. Yet, I want to understand what Rand is implying by the part:

"My darling, anything you

wish, anything I am, anything I can ever be . .. That's what i

want to offer you not the things I'll get for you, but the thing

in me that will make me able to get them. That thing a man

can't renounce it but I want to renounce it so that it will be

yours so that it will be in your service only for you"

Here is the whole quote.

Gail Wynand was twenty when he fell in love. He had known

everything there was to know about sex since the age of thirteen

He had had many girls. He never spoke of love, created no

romantic illusion and treated the whole matter as a simple animal

transaction; but at this he was an expert and women could tell

it, just by looking at him. The girl with whom he fell in love had

an exquisite beauty, a beauty to be worshiped, not desired. She

was fragile and silent. Her face told of the lovely mysteries

within her, left unexpressed.

She became Gail Wynanand's mistress. He allowed himself the

weakness of being happy. He would have married her at once

had she mentioned it. But they said little to each other. He felt

that everything was understood between them.

One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to

her, he allowed his soul to be heard. "My darling, anything you

wish, anything I am, anything I can ever be . .. That's what i

want to offer you not the things I'll get for you, but the thing

in me that will make me able to get them. That thing a man

can't renounce it but I want to renounce it so that it will be

yours so that it will be in your service only for you: The girl

smiled and asked: "Do you think I'm prettier than Maggie

Kelly?"

He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. he

never saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself

never needing a lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the

years that followed.

[MoralParadise]

Oh come on - 40 views and no one read the Fountainhead?

Edited August 22, 2009 by MoralParadise

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Well, it's not that Gail Wynand was annoyed because he could not control her. He was uspet because the woman he thought he loved turned out to be lights are on but nobody's home.

[Grames]

What does it mean? I think it is an example of Gail not being able to control someone, and being frustrated. Yet, I want to understand what Rand is implying by the part:

It is part of setting the pattern for all of his future human interactions until he meets Dominique and Roark. He doesn't believe anyone is what they look to be or claim to be.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Wynand dumped her because she was a second-hander -- all she wanted to do after being so praised by Gail was to compare herself to someone else, and Wynand just thought she wasn't worthwhile any longer based on those premises. Wynand was a self-made man and didn't compare himself or his values to others, and he expected the same from those he loved.

[MoralParadise]

Wynand's philosophy seems to be formed in this passage. He assumes that people are generally worthless and that he must therefore gain power over them...and subsequently allow them to control him. It's ironic how he resents the second handerism in his would be girlfriend, yet resorts to a darker form of it through pandering to the masses in an opposite form of Roark.

The attitude he adopts is key to his future actions in the novel.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

It's ironic how he resents the second handerism in his would be girlfriend, yet resorts to a darker form of it through pandering to the masses in an opposite form of Roark.

But Wynand doesn't realize that power lust is a form of second-handedness; and he doesn't realize he lets people in general mean too much to him, which is also a form of second-handedness. After reading the story, you can realize that his great mistake was in accepting that mankind was nothing but second-handers, leading him to become one, but he doesn't realize that until much later in his life.

It's not that the right type of people shouldn't mean anything to you, but realizing that others make of their lives what they will -- perhaps without much thought at all -- but you don't have to follow the herd in your own choices, so long as you are a free man.