This study will examine Chapter 4 from Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. Specifically, the study will explain, define and analyze why the story in the chapter is told in the third person, will explore the Oedipal triangle among Duncan, Annabelle and Cass, and will consider the significance of the message of the chapter related to the story of Willie Stark.
Of course, the narrator of the book---Jack Burden---himself explains what he is up to in this chapter. With respect to the connection between the story in this chapter and the story of Willie Stark, the narrator writes,
not that the first excursion has anything directly to do with the story of Willie Stark, but it has a great deal to do with the story of Jack Burden, and the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in one sense, one story (157).
Willie dies corrupted, of course, while Jack survives to learn lessons of morality, wisdom and compassion which he is able to put into his book about Cass. Both Jack and Willie were drawn into a world of corruption, step by step, just as Cass was drawn into the same world a century earlier.
This "first excursion" is Jack's effort to understand a piece of history, to understand why Cass behaved the way he did. He didn't want the mere facts, but rather he wanted to know why what happened happened. He assigns himself---or history assigns him by means of his relations---to the discovery of the truth behind Cass Mastern's actions. Later, he is assigned by Willie to discover some dark secret in the life of Judge Irwin, who turns out to be Jack's father. The point of all these secrets, intrigue, investigations, interrelationships and corruption is to show that once an individual takes an action which he should not take, which is selfish and careless and immoral, the ramifications and consequences of that act are tragic and far-reaching.
However, Jack considers this first "excursion" into history a failure becau...