Jack Burden is much more than a narrator describing the rise and fall of Willie Stark in All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. Woven into his description of The Boss' political machinations and personal dilemmas is an account of his thoughts and aspirations. The novel not only tells the story of the fall of a political giant, but also the development and emotional maturation of a man who has not yet mentally reached adulthood, despite being almost forty years old. Indeed, Jack notes at the end of the novel: “This was Willie Stark's story, but it's also my story. Because I have a story” (Warren 656). Although Jack Burden lacks the maturity of a developed adult for much of the novel, reconciling each of his three father figures - Willie Stark, Judge Irwin, and Ellis Burden - with his life helps him mature and accept responsibility for his actions. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay When Jack begins to tell the story, he observes the world from a safe distance. This distance allows him to feel superior and disconnected from humanity, protects him from “messy commitments” (Sanderson 1), and positions him to display the sarcasm he so often does. When she travels to Mason City with Willie and the others in 1936, she is with him, literally stuck in the backseat between two adults like a small child. As the car approaches Old Stark's farm, Jack peers out the dusty window and imagines the people inside the houses he is speeding past. “Listen to the flies flying around the room, and then listen to your engine get big on the road, then shrink in the distance” (Warren 33), he thinks to himself, brightening the image of his arrival and departure without significant impact . This image resurfaces numerous times in the first part of the novel. One evening before Willie is elected governor, Jack sees the world and connects with it through the thick glass of a train window. He studies a woman in her yard and, as the train pulls away, thinks, “She'll stay there. And suddenly you think you're the one who's running away” (Warren 114). A few seconds later he sees a cow and feels desperate, commenting: “And suddenly you feel like crying. But the train goes fast and almost immediately everything you feel is taken away from you too” (Warren 114). Jack's tremulous relationship with the world is as delicate as that of a child, whose emotions are also evanescent. He is so emotionally delicate that for much of the novel he thinks of himself as a piece of furniture. When the reader meets Sadie and Willie, Jack says, "I have been a piece of furniture for a long time, but some vestige of the good manners my grandmother taught me still lingers and occasionally gets the better of my curiosity" (Warren 49) . This feeling is clarified when Jack recalls a visit with his mother, who is obsessed with furniture, with “spinners, desks, tables, chairs, each choicer than the last [strewn about her house]” (Warren 159). When she sees Jack, she also treats him like furniture. He made Jack lie "on [his] back, with [his] head in his lap... He left his hand on [his] chest... and his right hand on [his] forehead" (Warren 157). Jack is thirty-five at the time of this scene, decidedly old for his mother's womb. When Jack hears his stepfather, Theodore, coming up the stairs, he tries to get up, but his mother holds him down until her husband sees them in that position. As such, it's no surprise that Jack feels objectified. Likewise, Jack's emotions lead him to the study of history. Whether he's writing for The Chronicle, investigating suspicions for Willie or working for aPhD. in American history, Jack is buried in history. When he was in college, he comments on how he took “refuge in the past” in an attempt to “hide from the present” (Warren 240).Ironically, for much of the story, Jack is ashamed of his history. Heavily affected by the outrageous claims regarding his father, Ellis Burden, Jack thinks that the man is not a "real man" (Ealy 2) if he abandoned Jack's mother. In Jack's eyes, if Ellis isn't a man, he can't be one either. As a result, he hides in other people's stories to try to forget his own. Jack's conception of reality is so illusory that when he is faced with a real, living person, his response is certainly not that of an adult. As he leans against the fence and watches the sunset on Old Stark's farm in the first chapter, he hears someone approaching him but doesn't turn to see who it is: If I didn't look around it wouldn't be true that someone had opened the gate... I had grabbed that principle from a book when I was in college, and I had held on to it to a sad death… It doesn't matter what you do or what happens around you because it's not real anyway (Warren 44). Jack's reaction here is similar to that of a child who tucks his head under his crossed arms and believes that if he can't see something, it doesn't exist. This ontology serves him well as Willie's lead investigator. Jack “sees his job simply as Willie's errand boy” (Bohner 3) and does not believe his actions have any influence on the world around him. His choices and actions are meaningless, and that's how he prefers. He sees no complicity on his part in revealing Judge Irwin's acceptance of a bribe from the American Electric Power Company twenty-five years ago, even though he readily agreed to Willie's request to dig up the land and carried out the research with a certain taste. When Anne is shocked to learn of her father's bribe and collusion, Jack responds insensitively and immaturely, "I only told her the truth...and she can't blame me for the truth" (Warren 454). Jack's relationships with women are equally sophomoric: he has no idea how to deal with them. He "feels absolutely no warmth for his mother" (Salt 3), and although he finds her a beautiful woman, he considers her an alien, "something so precious that it could not be tied to the green orb of God" (Warren 156) . He criticizes his father for leaving his mother but, at the same time, talks about her as if she always had “something more up her sleeve” (Drake 4). His relationship with Anne is stagnant and faltering, delayed nearly twenty years when Jack couldn't muster the courage to make love to her. After his romantic relationship with Anne disintegrates, Jack marries Lois, a rich girl whose only asset is her sexual bond with Jack. In chapter seven, he recalls, “until I had begun to notice that the sounds she made were words, there was no harm in her and no harm in the truly extraordinary pleasure she could provide” (Warren 440). The detachment he feels from society and women is emphasized in his frustrated comment that Anne, Lois, and all women are equal. Furthermore, Jack's behavior when making decisions about school and career highlights his desire to remain a child forever. Irritated when Anne asks him what he plans to do after college, Jack defensively exclaims "law school" (Warren 128) even though he isn't the least bit interested. After briefly attending law school, he happily accepts his expulsion. He then re-enrolls in college as a graduate student in American history and works toward his doctorate. for some time, but then, when thepressure increases, one of the three periods of time he calls the Big Sleep begins. To avoid making decisions and taking action, Jack sleeps “twelve or more hours a day, days and days” (Beebe 3) without doing much else. Additionally, Jack escapes reality through his other theories, such as the Great Contraction. While the Big Sleep and the Big Shrink have their creation roots in bouts of depression, Jack's tendency to return to seclusion when life demands decision or action highlights his immaturity. Nonetheless, by the end of the novel, Jack has come to terms with his mother, accepted culpability for Judge Irwin's death, married Anne, and welcomed his ailing father, a man he had long shied away from and disliked. “to be weak and foolish” (Cullick 2). What precipitates this radical change? Literary critic Jonathan Cullick argues that "Jack's connection to the story [helps him] abandon his pose of objectivity [and become more engaged in the world]" (Cullick 1). This argument couldn't be further from the truth, since Jack's connection to the story serves as an escape route, not a path to engagement. He immerses himself in the history of others to forget his own, to not connect with his own. Mr. Cullick's argument is nothing more than a paradox. As the novel progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Jack must deal with each of his father figures - Willie Stark, Judge Irwin, and Ellis Burden - before he can become more connected to the world and embark on his journey towards adulthood. . Willie is "a man of action" (Beebe 5), something Jack always reproached Ellis Burden, who he thought was his father, for not being. Jack thinks Ellis left his mother because she couldn't provide for his wants or needs. Judge Irwin, on the other hand, had a great influence on Jack's childhood, both before and after Ellis left the family, and Jack has many fond memories of his time with the judge. Like many tragic heroes, Jack must deal with each of his father figures before he can be seen as a true adult and member of the Burden's Landing community. It is an incident involving Willie helping Jack clarify his position. After discovering Willie and Anne's affair, Jack begins to understand that even his inaction has consequences. During an impromptu trip to the West Coast prompted by relationship shock, Jack recalls and examines the events and choices that sowed the seeds for the end of his relationship with Anne. Even as he escapes reality in the West, to a land “at the end of History” (Warren 467), the journey forces him to overcome the fact that “his lack of decisive action handed Anne over to Willie” (Sanderson 4). Jack he observes a change in the few days between Tom's paralysis and Willie's murder, and learns from it. Willie's last words to Jack are, "It might have been all different, Jack" (Warren 603), alluding to the possibility of choice. In the context of Jack's maturation, however, Willie must die. With Willie alive, “Jack would probably have continued to be Willie's errand boy” (Bohner 7), evading responsibilities and observing life from afar. But soon after Willie's death, Jack has the opportunity to make a decision and understand the consequences when he chooses not to inform Sugar Boy of Tiny's involvement in Willie's murder. Looking back on that experience, Jack notes, “But there was a difference now, in my mind if not in the circumstances of my life” (Warren 637). Additionally, Willie teaches Jack how to start and maintain a meaningful relationship with a lady. Throughout the novel, Willie is the center of female attention. His wife continues to love him despite his infidelity.Sadie and Anne have a similar story, becoming convinced that Willie is one of a kind. His power, courage and ambition make him attractive to women, especially Anne. Jack's lack of direction, on the other hand, frustrates Anne, and her efforts to inspire him prove futile, pushing her towards a man like Willie. Wanting a strong man destined to succeed, Anne enters into a relationship with Willie because of his sense of purpose and aura of confidence. She's gone from dating a directionless guy to pursuing a relationship with a driven, goal-oriented man, and Jack comes to understand that in his inability to find a healthy middle ground, he's lost Anne. Willie had to die so that Jack could apply this lesson to his life. If he hadn't died, Anne would probably have forgotten about Jack. Willie's death allows Jack to prove to Anne that he is now a grown man and lays the foundation for his success later in life. Just as it was necessary for Willie to die so that Jack could grow up, Judge Irwin's death serves a similar purpose. While Jack's story does not completely parallel the ancient story of Oedipus, enough similarities exist to merit some mention. Indeed, much like Oedipus' discovery of his father's identity, Jack does not learn that Judge Irwin is his father until after the judge's death, when Jack's mother cries, “Your father and oh! you, you killed him” (Warren 487). “But the result is the same; the father moves away so that the son can fulfill his role in the world" (Sale 6). Furthermore, the judge's death highlights the relationship between act and consequence; Jack's information about the corruption triggers the steps that culminate in Judge Irwin's suicide. Jack's epiphany comes when he realizes that he is crying, noting how the judge's death “was like ice breaking after a long winter. And the winter had been long” (Warren 533). After Willie's murder and Judge Irwin's suicide, Jack is well along the road to maturation. Jack's acceptance of Ellis Burden, the man he had presumed to be his biological father for nearly forty years, marks the completion of Jack's transformation into adulthood. “Jack Burden's curse [was that] he was invulnerable” (Warren 227), and when he brings Ellis into his home, it symbolizes his overcoming the fact that he is not invulnerable after all – not to history, to pain, to life. , love or compassion. Indeed, All the King's Men is much more than a political novel. “It is the story of a man who lived in the world and to him the world seemed one way for a long time and then it seemed another very different way” (Warren 605). Jack's experiences rocked his world, but ultimately brought him back to square one. At the end of the novel, he finds himself married to Anne and ready to leave Burden's Landing, never to return. With this step, Jack, the man who began as an observer of the world, is now ready to embrace it. Works Cited Beebe, Keith. “Biblical Motifs in All the King's Men” Journal of Bible and Religion 30 (1962): 123-30. JSTOR. St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Ridgeland. March 27, 2009 .Bohner, Charles. "Chapter 4: The Past and Its Burden." Robert Penn Warren. Charles Bohner. Twayne's United States Authors Series 69. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981. Literary Resource Center. Storm. EPISCOPAL SCHOOL OF SAINT ANDREW. April 2, 2009 .Cullick, Jonathan S. "From 'Jack Burden' to 'I': The Transformation of the Narrator in All the Kings Men." Studies in American Fiction. 25.2 (Fall 1997): p197. Literary Resource Center. Storm. EPISCOPAL SCHOOL OF SAINT ANDREW. April 2, 2009 .Drake, Robert. “Robert Penn Warren's Enormous Spider's Web.” The Mississippi Quarterly. 48.1 (Winter 1994): p11. Literary Resource Center. 200966279>.