Willie Stark Views History As A Tool example essay topic

In the novel All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren, the author uses the conflicts, both those of society and the characters, the setting and the attitudes of the community to reflect the period of the 1930's and its similar conflicts, social attitudes and values of the time. All the King's Men is the story of the rise and fall of a political titan in the Deep South during the 1930's. Willie Stark rises from hardscrabble poverty to become governor of his state and its most powerful political figure; he blackmails and bullies his enemies into submission, and institutes a radical series of liberal reforms designed to tax the rich and ease the burden of the state's poor farmers. He is beset with enemies– most notably Sam MacMurfee, a defeated former governor who constantly searches for ways to undermine Willie's power– and surrounded by a rough mix of political allies and hired thugs, from the bodyguard Sugar-Boy O'Sheean to the fat, fawning Tiny Duffy (Coughlan, 52). All the King's Men is also the story of Jack Burden, the scion of one of the state's aristocratic dynasties, who turns his back on his refined upbringing and becomes Willie Stark's right-hand man. Jack uses his considerable talents as a historical researcher to dig up the unpleasant secrets of Willie's enemies, which are then used for purposes of blackmail.

Cynical and lacking in ambition, Jack has walked away from many of his past interests– he leaves his dissertation in American History unfinished, and never manages to marry his first love, Anne Stanton, the daughter of a former governor of the state. When Willie asks Jack to look for skeletons in the closet of Judge Irwin, a father figure from Jack's childhood, Jack is forced to confront his ideas concerning consequence, responsibility, and motivation. He discovers that Judge Irwin has accepted a bribe, and that Governor Stanton covered it up; the resulting blackmail attempt leads to Judge Irwin's suicide. It also leads to Adam Stanton's decision to accept the position of director of the new hospital Willie is building, and leads Anne to begin an affair with Willie. When Adam learns of the affair, he murders Willie in a rage, and Jack leaves politics forever. Willie's death and the circumstances in which it occurs force Jack to rethink his desperate belief that no individual can ever be responsible for the consequences of any action within the chaos and tumult of history and time.

Jack marries Anne Stanton and begins working on a book about Cass Master, the man whose papers he had once tried to use as the source for his failed dissertation in American History. All the King's Men focuses on the lives of Willie Stark, an upstart farm boy who rises through sheer force of will to become Governor of an unnamed Southern state during the 1930's, and Jack Burden, the novel's narrator, a cynical scion of the state's political aristocracy (Block, 27) who uses his abilities as a historical researcher to help Willie blackmail and control his enemies. The novel deals with the large question of the responsibility individuals bear for their actions within the turmoil of history, and it is perhaps appropriate that the impetus of the novel's story comes partly from real historical occurrences. Jack Burden is entirely a creation of Robert Penn Warren, but there are a number of important parallels between Willie Stark and Huey Long, who served Louisiana as both Governor and Senator from 1928 until his death in 1935.

Like Huey Long, Willie Stark is an uneducated farm boy who passed the state bar exam; like Huey Long, he rises to political power in his state by instituting liberal reform designed to help the state's poor farmers. And like Huey Long, Willie is assassinated at the peak of his power by a doctor– Dr. Adam Stanton in Willie's case, Dr. Carl A. Weiss in Long's. Unlike Willie, however, Long was assassinated after becoming a Senator, and was in fact in the middle of challenging Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party (Silvers, 132). Throughout All the King's Men, history plays an important role in the motivations and lives of all the characters. History's importance is most noticeable, not surprisingly, in the story main characters – Willie Stark and Jack Burden – whose lives focus on and, in some cases, depend upon history and how they relate themselves to it.

While Willie Stark views history as a tool with which to manipulate people for his own ends, an attitude resulting in his own destruction, Jack Burden's view of history changes over time and eventually allows him to accept his relationship to the past and, therefore, present. Since each man has such a differing view it is no wonder that history becomes important to each in different ways. Willie Stark must support his entire empire in a world of enemies and corruption, to do this he relies on the past to provide him with the foundation. Both Stark and Burden use history differently according to the way it figures into their lives. To Stark, ultimate power being paramount, history is a thing to be used in the manipulation of others to achieve his own ends. For example, when Judge Irwin decides to endorse Murphy's candidate for the senate, rather than Stark's, Stark views it as the perfect occasion for the manipulation of the judge through blackmail, both directly and indirectly.

When he discovers the reason for Irwin's change in endorsements he plays along saying", ' Suit yourself, Judge. But you know, there's another way to play it. Maybe somebody might give Callahan a little shovelful on somebody else' (Block, 73). When this angle doesn't work, the next thing Stark tries is direct manipulation of the Judge himself.

Thus we see how Stark, using the past as a tool, bends people to his will for his own plans and desires. In conclusion, history and culture play a very important role in the novel, All the King's Men. The main characters use history as a tool to reach their goals and manipulate it to their liking. The characters themselves are patterned after real people, whom they personify in all their glory and infamy. The story, too, follows the customs and social patterns of the south in the 1930's. These qualities give the novel a truly realistic narration of the rise an fall of a political king, and his affect on everyone.