the drawings.
“Leave these here!” bellowed Cameron. “Now get out!”
In this scene, Cameron is speaking about a concrete—his own and Roark’s particular position in the world—but at the same time he is stating and emphasizing a wider issue—their stand against society as individualists and nonconformists. Cameron is saying: “We’re outcasts, we’ll have a terrible battle, I don’t want you to suffer as I did—but you have no choice, because I won’t let you sell yourself by going to anyone else.” This is the essence of the bond between the two men and the key to their fate in the book.
Compare this to the scene from Arrowsmith. Gottlieb too is a nonconformist and a lonely, idealistic fighter, although this is indicated more in the preceding narrative than in the scene itself. What is projected in the scene is Gottlieb’s contempt for the average students (“the potatoes”) and his eagerness to find serious disciples (those who wish “to become scientists”). In other words, he feels strongly about his science and is bitterly opposed to the conventional standards. However, since he is talking in concretes which illustrate merely that one level of abstraction, his speech has a nonphilosophical aura. He likes one type of student and is bitter about the other—period.
Cameron says openly that he and Roark are victims of society and fighters for their art; Gottlieb says nothing that indicates his wider position as a fighter for science. Instead, he focuses on the minutiae of his particular profession, such as the requirements for his course or the issue of organic versus physical chemistry. From a Naturalistic standpoint, these technical details are what makes the scene “real”; from a Romantic standpoint, they clutter it up. Observe that I do not have Cameron say: “I’ll teach you to design corner windows rather than Greek pediments.” But the Naturalist’s approach is precisely the inclusion of such details. “To be real,” he would say, “you’ve got to give the particulars.”
If the scene from Arrowsmith had been longer and fuller, and if it had shown the essence of the two men’s encounter, it could, even by the Romantic standard, have absorbed some of the technical details. The number of concrete details proper to include in a scene depends on its scale. But as the scene stands, one can only infer the essence, since what is shown directly is merely the technical dialogue. This is why I say that the scene is cluttered with details.
Whether a writer draws a character in essentials or in minute detail is determined by the depth of motivation he covers.
A Romantic characterization must not include too many particulars ; it can include only that which is essential to each layer of the onion skins—of the character’s motives.
For instance, the characterization of Cameron in The Fountainhead is very generalized. The reader is not told much about his life, his office, or his clothes. But what do I show about him? Not merely that he is a great man who is misunderstood by society and then drinks himself to death—but also the reasons behind it. Cameron is an independent man who has been broken by [an inimical] society; he is a man who could have been like Roark, but his premises and confidence were not strong enough. I bring everything I say about him down to the basic issue: a man’s mind against the minds of others.
All I present is the essentials. Therefore, while Cameron is Cameron, he also stands for any great man who, after a devoted struggle, is broken by society.
Gottlieb is presented much more intimately by Lewis. For instance, he makes a special kind of delicate European sandwich for Arrowsmith, he uses expressions like “Father Nietzsche” and “Father Schopenhauer,” and he refers to his days as a student in Heidelberg. This is good characterization; one does get the picture of the man, and in great detail—almost as if one had seen his photograph. But what does one learn about his motivation? Only one thing: that he is devoted to science and has contempt for worldly goods and human relationships.
Sinclair Lewis will beat me hollow on the perception of the particular. But the particular is all that the reader gets from him, with merely one or two underlying levels of motivation.
Incidentally, there are instances of crossbreeding in literature, Shakespeare being the best example. He presents his characters by means of their essence—the essence of a dominating father (King Lear), of a doubting intellectual (Hamlet), or of a jealous man (Othello). Yet Shakespeare is a