Moxley Post #3

Hierarchy of Characters from Best to Worst

Women

1) Lucy Talos

Lucy Talos is the best female character in this book mostly because of all the other female characters that play a larger role in All the King's Men, she is the only one without some sort of black mark on her. While she may be more than a little uptight and bossy, she is only trying to be a good mother and good wife while staying true to herself, even if it means drifting further and further away from Willie and trying to make Tom stop playing football. ""No," she said, "he's not alright."..."I would rather see him dead at my feet than what your vanity will make him." "Don't be a fool!" "You will ruin him." Her voice was quiet and even." (pg. 322) She only wants the best for Tom as she argues with Willie by his hospital bed following a car accident, and she will do anything and everything to help him stay safe.

2) Sadie Burke

As a result of practically every character having something bad about them, the hierarchy becomes more about the severity of the offense than anything else. Despite having an affair with Willie Talos, Sadie Burke does her job well and tries her best to help whoever she is working for's political campaign succeed. She knows all about Willie's corruption and his other affairs, or his "four-timing" as Jack calls it, as Willie is already cheating on his wife with Sadie; in spite of this, Sadie's loyalty to her job makes her continue to work diligently for Willie, placing her bellow Lucy Talos for obvious reasons, but above the following characters because of her good work and strong values.

3) Lois Burden

Lois has a rather meaningless part in All the King's Men as her character only really exists to add to a grater point, putting her in the middle of the hierarchy. She is not really a good person, as she and Jack are never really happy during their marriage, but she doesn't really do anything particularly bad to  hurt or offend anyone too drastically either, placing her behind Lucy Talos and Sadie, but before Anne Stanton and Annabelle Trice.

4) Anne Stanton

Anne Stanton is worse than the previous three characters mainly because her bad actions were done in secret and hurt more people than they helped. Throughout the book, the reader gets the impression that Jack and Anne were once more to each other than solely friends, and Jack's protectiveness of Anne and  the way he acts when he is around her points toward him looking to rekindle that closeness. Other characters in the book thought this as well, or at least Sadie Burke: ""...If you were a man you'd get up and go in there and knock the hell out of him. I thought she was yours"..."Are you saying," I began firmly, "that - that -" I had been about to pronouce the name of Anne Stanton,... but all at once the name stuck in my throat and with surprise I discovered that I could not say it. So I continued: "- that she - she -" But Sadie Burke...jabbed that name at me, "Yeah, she, she, that Stanton girl, Anne Stanton!"" (pg. 373-374) It appears as though the entire time Jack has been trying to reconnect with Anne, she has been sneaking around his backs and sleeping with Willie Talos, hurting his previous mistress Sadie and hurting Jack, so much so that he drives across the country and falls into a minor depression while staying at a motel in California. This places her below all the previous characters because her actions explicitly hurt people, more so than Willie Talos's cheating on his wife with Sadie, as Lucy is currently not aware of that action (that the readers know of), so it doesn't hurt her outright.

5) Annabelle Trice

While she doesn't play an extensive role in the main story of All the King's Men, Annabelle Trice is visibly the worst female character because she hurt the most people in the most ways, not once stopping to think about how her actions impacted others. First of all, she has an affair with Cass Mastern, eventually causing her nice, loving husband to kill himself because he cannot deal with the betrayal. On top of having little remorse or sadness over her husband's death, she sells the slave that discovered her affair to another man who will sell her separately, and in the mean time will use her as a sex slave. This also separates the slave from her husband that Annabelle still owns, for her careless and thoughtless owner can't seem to see the repercussions her own actions have on those in her life around her.

Men

1) Adam Stanton

Adam Stanton, similar to Lucy Talos, is probably one of the only male characters to not have done anything terrible to change his character. Adam is a doctor and talented pianist, and despite him making lots of money working as a surgeon, he lives in a small apartment with not much besides his piano, the one thing he appears to send money on. In addition, Adam takes the job of working at and managing Willie's new hospital despite his animosity towards him because he wants to help people and make a difference. This places him at the top of the male hierarchy because he is extremely selfless and cares more about the work that he does than his personal views, putting aside his feelings for Willie to help create a better hospital.

2) Cass Mastern

Cass Mastern is below Adam Stanton because of his affair with Annabelle Trice, leading to the death of her husband. He is above the rest of the characters of the male hierarchy because he tries to fix the damage caused by Annabelle and clean up the mess that he in part created. ""To whom did you sell the girl?" "What's it to you?" she answered. "To whom did you sell the girl?" he repeated. "I'll not tell you," she said. "I will find out," he said. "I will go to Paducah and find out." She... demanded, "Why - why are you going?" "To find her," he said. "To find her and buy her and set her free."" (pg. 252) Cass  knows what will happen to the slave girl that Annabelle discards, and sets out to help her, unable to abandon his morals even when everything he wants is right where he can have it, now that all who know about the affair are gone.

3) Jack Burden

Jack Burden is below the previous characters mainly because he hasn't done enough good or bad things to tip the scale for him or against him. While he plays a rather large role in All the King's Men, being the narrator, he has remained neutral, not involved in Willie's corruption but not reporting it either. He loyally serves whoever he works for, no matter what he is asked to do.

4) Willie Talos

Willie Talos is at the bottom of the hierarchy because he is corrupt, and becomes corrupt despite the fact that the philosophy that eventually put him at governor was that he hated corruption. Against his own wishes, he has become what he swore to protect the people of Louisiana against, and his inability to resist temptation, both with women and with alcohol, suggests that he will become increasingly more corrupt as the story continues. 

5) Dolph Pillsbury/ the Sheriff

I combined these two characters because while neither of them play a large role in All the King's Men in  its entirety, they started the flame that spread to a fire by taking facilitating the schoolhouse deal. By taking the bigger construction bid and pocketing the money made by using cheap bricks rather than good bricks to build the schoolhouse, Dolph Pillsbury and the Sheriff caused the fatalities the occurred when the fire escape broke. By serving themselves and not the people, they caused the deaths of children, placing them at the bottom of the hierarchy.