Study of All the King's Men

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

. . .
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
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Jack Burden, Cass Cass, Judge Irwin, Duncan Annabelle, Jack Cass, Cass Mastern, Jack Willie, Irwin Jack's, Willie Stark, Cass Duncan, jack burden, third person, story willie, willie stark, story willie stark, cass jack, jack jack, duncan annabelle, story jack burden, story jack, cass mastern, jack conceive jack, mastern , jack burden, cass mastern,
Approximate Word count = 1674
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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