Research Paper on "Ayn Rand's Life and Work Contains Three"

Research Paper 5 pages (1851 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Ayn Rand's life and work contains three main sections. First, it describes her life from a biographical viewpoint. Second, it discusses key features of her works. Third, it critiques Rand's Objectivist philosophy of art, focusing on her definition of art and her views of how art should be judged.

Ayn Rand was born with the name Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum into a Russian Jewish family on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia (Heller 1). The socio-political climate in Russia at the time was fiercely anti-Semitic, and there was constant violence, as well as labor strikes and peasant strikes against the czarist government of Nicholas II (Heller 2). Rand's father was a pharmacist and her mother a former dentist who had stopped working following her first pregnancy. Rand's childhood was filled with turmoil due to socio-political instability, anti-Jewish sentiment and laws, disagreements with here mother, and her own intellectual battles (Heller 25). Early in life she decided that God likely does not exist (Heller 11; Heller 30) and that she wanted to be a writer (Heller 16).

By early 1917, the third year of World War I, many war-torn and nearly destroyed Russians were fighting poverty, violence, and starvation. This was especially true for Russian Jews, including Rand's family (Heller 24). The Russian Revolution and the rise of Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not improve conditions for Rand's family or the working class. The Rosenbaums in late summer 1918 decided they would no longer tolerate conditions in St. Petersburg/Leningrad, the latest intrusion being an order for them to share their living quarters with former servants, factory workers, and soldiers (Heller 33). The Rosenbaums moved to Crimea.

Following three years in Crimea, Rand and her family moved back to St. Petersburg and lived in a single room of their former apartment. Rand attended Petrograd State University from 1921 to her graduation in 1924. Her anti-communist views persisted. Her interest in movies and the film industry flourished, and she enrolled in the State Technicum for Screen Arts (Heller 49). She became fascinated by screenwriting and its possibilities as a starting career for a novelist, and so decided to immigrate to America and work in the film industry (Mayhew 74).

Soon after she arrived in Hollywood, director Cecil DeMille hired her as an extra, and later as a writer (Mayhew 75). She met actor Frank O'Connor on the set of King of Kings, and they were married in 1929. They remained married for fifty years, until his death.

In 1936, Rand's first novel, We the Living, was published by Macmillan to mixed reviews (Heller 94). Rand attempted to re-enter the film industry as a screenwriter, but encountered opposition mostly due to the anti-Soviet views expressed in We the Living (Heller 96).

In 1938 Cassell and Company published her second novel, Anthem, and in that same year Rand signed a contract with Alfred a. Knopf, Inc. To write and publish the Fountainhead. After missing two deadlines, however, the contract was dissolved by mutual agreement. She was able to procure a new contract with Bobbs-Merrill, and she completed the Fountainhead in 1943. In order to complete the book, Rand began taking amphetamines; she worked long hours and often stayed awake for days at a time (Heller 142). The Fountainhead was very successful with readers and many critics, and Rand signed a contract with Warner Brothers to produce a movie based on the novel. Rand's fame and wealth increased, and she was free to work on her novels and philosophical non-fiction.

In the midst of working on her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, Rand agreed to testify as a friendly witness to the House Un-American Activities Committee (Heller 202) on the ideology of certain films, particularly Song of Russia (Mayhew 79). Rand argued in her testimony that the film is "a work of communist propaganda" (Mayhew 103).

Over the next years, Rand developed a relationship with college student and protege, Nathaniel Branden, and his wife, Barbara. Rand and Branden fell in love and were given permission by both Rand's husband, Frank O'Connor, and Barbara Branden, to begin an affair (Heller 257). The affair lasted 15 years before Rand ended it, and she and Branden broke all contact five years after that when she learned of his affair with a young model. The Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), which promoted Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, soon dissolved.

Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. Although the initial reviews were scathing (Hiller 282), there was a very positive response from readers (Hiller 287). The book later became an international bestseller, but the toil of many years, stresses of her relationships, and possibly her amphetamine use caused Rand to become severely depressed. After recovering from a three-year depression, she completed several works of non-fiction on her philosophy, Objectivism, and continued to lecture at colleges and universities throughout the 1960's and 1970's. Rand developed lung cancer and was forced to have surgery in 1974. She died in 1982 of congestive heart failure.

Ayn Rand produced four major novels, many philosophical articles, several plays, and non-fiction philosophical books in her life. This section will focus on describing her work, particularly her philosophy of Objectivism as it relates to art. The main metaphysical tenet of Objectivism is that Existence exists (Rand, Obj vs. Cons 15). or, otherwise stated, that mind-independent things exist, regardless of whether we think about them (Matson 23). In this way Objectivism is similar to philosophical realism.

Objectivism also draws conclusions about epistemology, ethics, and politics. In epistemology, Objectivism maintains that reason, not emotion, is our only source of knowledge and guide for action (Rand, Obj vs. Cons 15). In ethics, Objectivism argues man's highest goal is to pursue happiness for himself, and that in order to accomplish happiness, man must exercise individual liberty and selfishness, as opposed to altruism (Rand, Obj vs. Cons 15). In politics, Objectivism argues for laissez-faire capitalism (Rand, Obj vs. Cons 15).

In her novels, Rand often attempts to advocate the tenets of Objectivism by creating characters that uphold Objectivism (these are her heroes and heroines) and characters that act antithetically to Objectivism (these are her villains). For example, in the Fountainhead, the main hero, Howard Roark, must follow reason and individualism in order to gain happiness. Roark is an architect who battles many villains in order to design highly creative, revolutionary buildings. These villains are often uncreative criminals who steal Roark's ideas; they are therefore not living according to their own creative minds but instead are living through others (Ayn Rand in Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia). An important feature of the Fountainhead and many of Rand's other writings is on the creative impulse of her heroes and heroines. In the Fountain Head, Roark is a creative architect and must battle villains to enable him to express his unique, brilliant viewpoint through the art of architecture.

Rand has theorized about what art is according to Objectivism. She says, "The Objectivist definition of art is as follows: Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical [fundamental] values" (Rand, Vis Arts 109). She goes on to discuss how different art forms re-create reality. For example, she states that painting re-creates reality by applying color to a two dimensional surface and that music re-creates reality by means of sound waves evoking metaphysical emotions. Literature re-creates reality by means of concepts [words] (Rand, Vis Arts 109).

According to one interpretation of the concepts expressed in the Fountainhead, Rand expresses a belief that a work of art (in this case architecture) has intrinsic greatness regardless of public opinion (Kreiner 9). This would be the case if, as Rand maintains, a work of art could be judged by "an objective, rational standard" (Rand, Vis Arts 109). She states, so long as men are doing something, an objective criterion of judgment must be involved" (Rand, Vis Arts 109). Rand then says that the objective criterion of judgment is how well an artist communicates a viewpoint, regardless of what that viewpoint might be (Rand, Vis Arts 110). According to Ayn Rand, the artist has the most ability to judge his own work objectively (Rand, Vis Arts 110).

The next section of this paper presents a critique of some of Rand's work. The critique focuses on her theories of art, particularly on her definition of art and her ideas of how art must be judged. It may be thought that Rand's Objectivism calls for pure realism and figuration in a work of art. According to this view, abstraction and non-figurative art are less valuable because they re-create reality less well than realistic, figurative art. In fact, Rand's view seems to be even more radical. She states, "As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art" (Rand, Mod Art). Therefore, Rand dismisses as non-art any piece that is not representational.

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