Amanda smith post-chapter 9

In All The Kings Men there is a constant theme regarding corruption and the good and bad sides of the human mentality. As jack burden travels west, simply getting in his car and driving the thousands of miles to the coast you, the reader, finally get to understand he and Ann's relationship through his inner dialogue. He recounts the summer they spent together and the moment he told her he loved her and the days that followed, you see him coward out of sleeping with her and then blame it on his nobility. He then unravels the thoughts of nobility versus fear and how easy it is to blame his parents coming home as the reason that he didn't sweep her off her feet that day. Jack is getting to know himself in this drive to California and Robert Penn Waren is finally writing the untellings of jack and allowing the readers to be captivated by the relatable vulnerability. Jacks philosophical inquiries bad begun as being about the world, about life and about the fascinations of human nature and in the scenes he rattles off about Ann are finally about him. He described her jumping off the tallest diving board with grace and ease and that is the moment he knows he is in love with her, and their first kiss was so beautiful and timid and he laughed when noticing it must have been her first kiss. The pact they made to get married and the betrayal of her and Willies relationship sent him over the edge and forced him to realize that timidity would get him no where with the woman he loved and made him question whether she meant what she had said to him. "'Do you love me?' I said sternly, 'Of course I do Jackie Boy, of course I love my Jackie Bird', 'don't call me Jackie Bird! God damn it don't you love me?','why? Of course I love my Jackie Bird'" (508). Ann doesn't take Jack seriously in this passage, it gives reason for him to worry over her level of sincerity in her love for him. And opens up that window for his uncertainty and mental battle.