Who Is The Protagonist In All The King's Men
ON WILLIE STARK AS POLITICAL LEADER
Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men1 tells the story of two men, Jack Burden, the book’s narrator, and Willie Stark, Jack’s friend and boss. Because my focus is on the politics of the novel, Jack Burden will appear only occasionally in this paper. This approach does not do justice to the richness of the novel, for as Jack himself says, his story and Willie’s story are really one story. With this limitation in mind, I now turn to a review of Willie Stark’s career.
Willie Stark, the political protagonist of All the King’s Men, was a reluctant but earnest young politician who had returned quickly to private life after his initial effort to achieve reform at the local level failed. Through a matter of chance, he returned to the public eye, became convinced to …show more content…
As Willie made clear to those around him, everything about this hospital, from its’ construction to its’ staffing, would be on the up and up, untainted by political considerations. For this reason, Willie resisted Tiny Duffy’s efforts to throw the hospital contract to Gummy Larson. Larson was a construction executive with ties to McMurfee, and Tiny thought giving him the hospital contract was a way to break McMurfee’s last base of power.
Willie’s stance on the hospital led Jack Burden to reflect on an apparent contradiction in Willie’s thinking that Jack never resolved, a paradox that is essential in understanding the nature of the corruption in the Stark administration. Governor Stark told Adam Stanton, his choice to be director of the hospital, that one has to make good out of badness, “because there isn’t anything else to make it out of.” (257) After leaving Stanton and Governor Stark, Jack reflected on what the governor had
Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men1 tells the story of two men, Jack Burden, the book’s narrator, and Willie Stark, Jack’s friend and boss. Because my focus is on the politics of the novel, Jack Burden will appear only occasionally in this paper. This approach does not do justice to the richness of the novel, for as Jack himself says, his story and Willie’s story are really one story. With this limitation in mind, I now turn to a review of Willie Stark’s career.
Willie Stark, the political protagonist of All the King’s Men, was a reluctant but earnest young politician who had returned quickly to private life after his initial effort to achieve reform at the local level failed. Through a matter of chance, he returned to the public eye, became convinced to …show more content…
As Willie made clear to those around him, everything about this hospital, from its’ construction to its’ staffing, would be on the up and up, untainted by political considerations. For this reason, Willie resisted Tiny Duffy’s efforts to throw the hospital contract to Gummy Larson. Larson was a construction executive with ties to McMurfee, and Tiny thought giving him the hospital contract was a way to break McMurfee’s last base of power.
Willie’s stance on the hospital led Jack Burden to reflect on an apparent contradiction in Willie’s thinking that Jack never resolved, a paradox that is essential in understanding the nature of the corruption in the Stark administration. Governor Stark told Adam Stanton, his choice to be director of the hospital, that one has to make good out of badness, “because there isn’t anything else to make it out of.” (257) After leaving Stanton and Governor Stark, Jack reflected on what the governor had