When Peter Keating says he would sell his soul for Roark’s help, Peter is plainly meaning he’ll give anything for the Cortlandt design, that it’s sadly something greater than his soul. He doesn’t understand that his soul is the greatest gift that he possesses. Yes it’s something that was given to him and he didn’t have to work for it, but it’s powerful, it’s his being, his essence of individuality. To sell it would be to empty, worthless and be in the control of Howard. When Roark hears this he understands something deeper than what Peter implies, Howard is disgusted by this comment and replies by saying “To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul would you understand why that’s much harder?”
Peter is a man two years older than Howard Roark, a man that graduated Stanton Institute of Technology by having Howard do his projects, knowing, and wholly understanding that Howard was a better designer, architect, and ultimately a greater, self confident person. When your first introduced to Peter he’s in the auditorium at his graduation, recalling his past year, trying to convince himself how he sacrificed and suffered to beat a rival classmate, to graduate with honors, receive a gold medal by the Architects Guild of America and be awarded the Prix de Paris by the society for Architectural Enlightenment of the U.S.A. While he is recalling, he feels something inside his throat, haunting him, a question asking him whether he was really as great as that day would declare him to be. Peter feels something, a pang of guilt, of unworthiness springs alive inside of him and the only thing to relieve him of this remorse is to look at his defeated rival and feel reassured. However a while later Keating then remembers Howard Roark with the thought of that name came the delight of knowing that Howard was expelled, feeling stupid for believing that Roark would be a dangerous...