Study of All the King's Men

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

Related Essays

Racial Justice Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and WEB Dubois .... After completing a long study of Philadelphia's seventh war .... the Nation of Islam and denied that .... white people .... who showed disdain for King's methods, King, Jr .... (1115 4 )

The Humanist Movement .... Furthermore,women are not truly to study these things in .... ages, who swore an oath of fealty to the king. .... family his name, he was responsible for .... legal and .... (1934 8 )

Martin Luther King, Jr. .... Although his first desire was to study medicine, he later switched to .... was a leader not only for African Americans, but for .... Americans. .... Martin Luther KIng, Jr .... (3091 12 )

Case Study .... plan for liquidating the airline, including plans for effectively halting .... operations on .... Laker out of business and taking on Branson, Lord King has become .... (6023 24 )

Greek Pantheon and Myth as History .... that must be brought up, as the study of Theseus begins .... of the existence of a bronze age king, Theseus of .... the pirate-island of Scyros, sub- dued .... the cities .... (4126 17 )

Effects of Unemployment on Crime .... this study, youth is operationally defined as .... individuals ages .... However, variables for this study are unemployment in .... Minium, EW, King, BM, & Bear, G. (1993 .... (2002 8 )

earlier incarnation of the older Jack. In any case, there is too much distance---in time, knowledge and experience---for the older Jack to conceive of the younger Jack as anything but a different person. This distance is most pertinent in terms of the insights into Cass that the younger Jack does not have and the older Jack does have: Jack Burden could not put down the facts about Cass Mastern's world because he did not know Cass Mastern. . . . But I (who am what Jack Burden became) look back now, years later, and try to say why. Cass Mastern . . . learned that the world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it . . . the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the . . . spider . . . flings the gossamer coils about you . . . and then injects the black, numbing poison under your hide (189). Cass does not intend to corrupt himself or Duncan and Annabelle when he first meets him or her any more than Willie intends to corrupt or be corrupted when he first innocently enters politics in order to fight injustice. But the world is a corrupt place, or so argues the older Jack, and when one first brushes against the web of corruption, one will be eventually sucked into the dark

Category: Literature - S